To the lighthouse diaries
Kathy Sykes's diary about the challenge for the To the Lighthouse programme, from the BBC/OU series Rough Science 5
We’re making a lighthouse for the island of Bawe. How crazy is that?!
I go off to recce the island on the first day. We have to know what we’re going to do and where we can put it.
Damn & blast! So I’m stuck on a boat and beautiful sun-drenched, desolate island for the day. Another hard call.
No surprise - I had a lovely, lovely day. The island is unbelievable. It’s just a slab of coral that’s been pushed up out of the sea. Only a few metres high, with scrub-like vegetation all over. It’s near empty - and pretty impenetrable. Only one place to land with any certainty. With some sandy bits you can get a boat to at low tide - if you’re prepared to get quite wet and climb a steep, jagged, vicious cliff.
Found a reasonable place to site the lighthouse. Not completely ideal - I’d have preferred closer to the shipping lane. But it was physically impossible to get any closer.
Compass and protractor helped me work out where we were on the island. It looked the same all over - so useful having the compass particularly.
An amazing sunset in a beautiful place. How lucky am I!?
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Content last updated: 26/01/2005
