2000 Monday, July 11
I have sailed around Cape Race five times in the past; I have never seen it. It has always been wrapped in a shroud of thick fog. It is a particularly foggy place in Newfoundland.
Today, with a clear weather forecast, I decided to make trek to Cape Race; I was rewarded with stellar views of the lighthouse and the headland of the Cape. This red and white tower was built in 1907 on the site of an earlier tower from the mid 1800s. Cape Race marks the beginning of the main shipping lanes into eastern Canada; it has been the gate keeper for vessels crossing the Atlantic for centuries. It is this nation's busiest shipping lane; without a light, the rocky cape presents a hazard close to shipping. Many wrecks occurred here in days gone by. The lighthouse is among the most powerful in the world with an enormous Fresnel style lens that measures a staggering 17-feet in diameter.
If you want a more dramatic view of the light and Cape Race, you can view a short video I shot with my drone. It pans left and then right across the historic Cape and lighthouse.
Click Here.
Cape Race also used to be a site of a Marconi style wireless station for communicating with ships crossing the ocean. It provided a point of land close to the lanes where Morse code tapped out by radiomen could reach the land from shipboard. Some of the first reports of the fate of the Titanic came through the wireless station here. News was then relayed by land telegraph lines to cities in North America.
