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Consisting of a pair of small archipelagoes in the Gulf of Guinea 150 miles off the west coast of Africa, São Tomé and Príncipe is one of the world’s least known and most infrequently visited countries, but it does have some lighthouses that few people know about.
For the lighthouse enthusiast, the former Portuguese colony is unique in at least two ways.
First, its southernmost sentinel on the tiny but inhabited island of Ilhéu das Rolas (Turtledove Islet) can be described as “the lighthouse at the middle of the world.” The equator slices through the center of the island, which has an area of just three quarters of a square mile. The “Farol” (Portuguese for lighthouse) is barely a quarter mile inside the southern hemisphere. It is a short hike uphill from the Equator Landmark to the rectangular building with its squat, square tower with red and white daymark peeking out from the forest canopy. The islet is at 6.5 degrees East Longitude, putting it 450 nautical miles from the Greenwich Meridian. True, São Tomé is not exactly due south of London’s eastern suburb on the Thames, but it is the piece of land on the equator closest to zero degrees longitude.
Secondly, though the nation of 200,000 boasts seventeen lighthouses, harbor lights, and other fixed navigational aids, there is not a single traffic signal gracing its roads and streets, not even in the capital city of São Tomé, with over one third of the population. Perhaps there are a handful of other island states without stoplights, but it is unlikely that any offer the assortment of lighthouses of São Tomé and Príncipe.
Geography aside, historically and architecturally perhaps the most pleasing beacon is the São Sebastião Light in the capital, poised on the outer sea wall of the massive 16th century stone fort at the tip of a peninsula. It guards the eastern entrance to Ana Chaves Bay, the capital’s harbor. The São Sebastião fortress is now the national historical museum, and the $5 entrance fee includes climbing the ladder up the exterior of the low tower for photo opportunities.
There has been a lighthouse at the fort since 1866, but the current tower was built in 1929, at the same time as many of the other lighthouses. In 1994 in a government to government technical military cooperation project encompassing many of São Tomé ’s lighthouses, the Portuguese navy oversaw the restoration of the São Sebastião Light tower.
The museum rooms inside the fortress building have exhibits about the ex-colony’s once flourishing sugar cane, cocoa and coffee plantations, and the comfortable lifestyle of their slave-holding owners.
From the city, it is an easy one-day excursion to the Equator Landmark and the nearby “Farol.” An experienced driver doubling as a guide takes us the 45 miles, winding up and down (1300 meters elevation gain and loss per GoogleEarth) along the rugged southeastern coast with splendid ocean views, before the newly paved road peters out to become a narrow, rocky lane through the forest leading to a modest eco-resort on a picture postcard perfect, palm-lined, white sand beach with barely a building in view. It is almost unreal.
For ten euros each, a narrow, open twenty-foot-long fiberglass skiff takes us through the gentle swells across the channel between the southern tip of São Tomé Island and Rolas Island. We clamber over the gunwales to get in and out on the beach in the surf. There are no docks or piers.
The driver finds the local guide, a fisherman with sideline tourism gigs, and we explain our wish to enter the lighthouse and ascend the tower. No problem. In the village, he retrieves the key from the keeper. Our timing does not coincide with his one official daily check on the light.
We set out, first hiking up to the mosaiced terrace carved out of the lushly forested hillside. A small monument set on a world map of colorful tiles marks zero degrees latitude. We take the obligatory photos, posing with one leg in each hemisphere.
There are no motor vehicles on the island which has just 150 dwellers concentrated in the village, so it is a peaceful twenty-minute walk. The narrow way through the shady forest of coconut palms, mangos and other tropical trees finally leads us to a small clearing at a high point where the jungle has been cut back from a stone and stucco building - the lighthouse.
It is only 30 or so spiraling steps and a short ladder up to the lantern room. Later, I learn online that its focal height is 106 meters and its range is 12 nautical miles. The lantern gallery offers sweeping 360 degree views of the sea and the main island to the north. The sole structure visible on the entire islet is the cell phone tower further along the ridge. Otherwise all is leafy and green below.
The lighthouse was built in 1929, but a plaque on the outer wall next to the door notes its restoration in 1994 with cooperation of the Portuguese Navy.
There are eight square rooms at ground level. I peek into a few of them. The walls are bare and in need of paint. One is furnished with a stool and simple bed. Another has a table in the corner. Otherwise, they are empty. From the shuttered windows, the view is dense jungle. It has been years since automation of the light eliminated the need for anyone to live in the building. A kitchen shed outside is derelict. There are large stone, water cisterns below on one side.
Later, I learn that one of the locked rooms contains the original Fresnel lens; unfortunately damaged during replacement with the modern lens, a MaxLumina Marine Lantern Model ML-300 manufactured by Tideland Signal Corporation in the United States. The original could be six feet tall and three or four feet wide according to my informant, making it possibly a second or third order.
The lighthouse is in need of a lot of care, but it has so much potential. São Tomé is just starting to gain traction as a tourist destination. The island has a small eco-resort whose guests are taken to the lighthouse as one of their routine activities. Why not allow the country’s leading hotel company, Portugal’s Peshtana Group, which owns the tiny resort, to fix up the rooms at ground level so their guests could spend a memorable night in a lighthouse?
Another day, we hire a driver to take me around the north side of the island to visit a few cocoa plantations. At the northern tip is Lagoa Azul (blue lagoon) Light standing on a promontory with an aquamarine cove tucked inside. It is a popular snorkeling spot.
Swimmers in bathing wear and flip flops walk the 200 yards up the path through tall grass to the red and white, concrete, cross-shaped post structure. Structurally, it is like a number of others built as part of a multi-year cooperation project with Portugal. According to the Wikipedia article in Portuguese, this one was inaugurated in 1997. The three-year project added seven new lighthouses and restored to operation the existing ten.
On the last day of my sojourn, I visit the port authority (“capitanía marítima”) in the harbor and track down the official in charge of lighthouse maintenance, Chief Dionisio Faleiro. He has spent 13 years in the national lighthouse service and has eight men working under him. In ink he marks out all 17 lights on my map. Regrettably, I had unwittingly passed by two, one at Ponta (Point) Mussanda and one on an islet, on the drive down the east coast to the equator. And from the cocoa plantation after Lagoa Azul, it would have been just another half hour to the Ponta Furada Light at the end of the road on the west coast. Yet another is off the north shore. It is a steel tower on Ilhéu das Cabras (Goat Islet), replacing one that was destroyed during post-independence warfare involving Cuban brigades in 1983.
Mr. Dionisio also shows me a roomful of car batteries, paint, and other spare parts and supplies. Then, in a downpour, he takes me to see the two harbor lights (“farolim” or small light) lined up one behind the other in a high-end neighborhood filled with embassies and ambassadors’ residences on the opposite west side of the bay. They are Anna Chaves Front Light and Anna Chaves Rear Light.
After saying goodbye to the lighthouse chief at my guesthouse, I head straight to the airport for a Lisbon flight.
Principe is a separate, smaller archipelago approximately 80 miles to the north of São Tomé where there are another eight lighthouses, including three “farolins,” but just 7000 population. During a total solar eclipse in 1919, scientists on the island were able to first corroborate Einstein’s theory of relativity by observing the bending of starlight.
The author is saving this even more remote and extraordinary place for a future lighthouse quest.
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2019 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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