Phare de la Teignouse, Maritime lighthouse in Quiberon Bay, France
Phare de la Teignouse is a white cylindrical lighthouse built on an isolated rocky reef in Quiberon Bay, off the coast of Brittany. The tower sits on a cone-shaped base and rises about 54 feet (16 meters) to a lantern room at the top.
The lighthouse was built in 1845, making it one of the first offshore lighthouses in France. It originally showed a fixed white light, which was later replaced by an automated flashing system still in use today.
The lighthouse takes its name from the reef it stands on, La Teignouse, a name that local sailors have used for generations to refer to this stretch of difficult water. Fishermen and sailors from the Quiberon Peninsula still use its flashing light as a reference when heading toward the islands of Houat and Hoëdic.
The lighthouse can only be reached by boat, and getting close depends on sea conditions since the reef is exposed to strong tidal currents. It remains an active aid to navigation, so visits aboard are not always possible, but it can be seen clearly from boat tours around the Quiberon Peninsula.
The reef sits almost exactly halfway between the Quiberon Peninsula and the island of Houat, placing the tower in the middle of one of the narrowest passages along this coastline. In its early years, the lighthouse was permanently manned, as storms could trap the keepers on the reef for days at a time.
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