Port Colborne Lighthouse.

The entrance to the Welland Canal is now in Port Colborne and sees a massive amount of traffic, pleasure crafts, cruise ships, but mostly cargo ships. The canal opened, in Port Colborne, in 1833, and the pier had a lighthouse guiding shipping from Lake Erie. The lighthouse experienced the usual difficulties of storm damage and changing uses. The current lighthouse was built in 1928 and in 2013 The Friends of The Port Colborne Lighthouse started offering tours on Canal Days. with info from lighthousefriends.com

Rick and I walked down to the Sugarloaf Marina and bought tickets for the next boat out to the lighthouse. We were fitted with life jackets and walked out on to the dock.

 

We boarded a rather decrepit pontoon boat and set out past the grain silos that anchor the end of the Welland Canal.

For the first sight of the lighthouse.

Before we started the tour The Empire Sandy came back into the canal and everything stopped while we all took photos of her.

It was hard to resist taking photo after photo as she came in.

The sails were being taken down as she came in.

Once she had passed by

we got on with the tour. The lighthouse was damp, stuffy and a little run down but its not decked out for tourists, who only get to come out here once a year.

The stairs are more like a ladder, very steep, and definitely not to code. Rick passed as he had recently had eye surgery and wasn't supposed to bend at the waist. The final door to the outside of the light had to be crawled through.

The pontoon boat had dropped off another group and taken others back.

The breakwall out to the fog horn has a tunnel that the lighthouse keeper could use to safely maintain the essential safety device.

Faintly, in the distance, the Point Abino Lighthouse, which is privately owned.

The canal entrance is to the right of the grain elevators, the entrance to the marina is to the left.

Back down the ladder stairs

and back on the pontoon boat as the last group of the day climbed to the light.