Lighthouse Mare La Jument (16 photos + 2 videos)

Category: Beautiful cities, Ships, PEGI 0+

23 October 2017

If you start looking for lighthouses during a storm, one of the most popular will be a photograph of the La Jument lighthouse and its keeper, who, according to a very common version on the Internet, went out to smoke during the storm. This photo is supposed to show how brave he is and is not afraid of anything.

But how did this reckless step of the lighthouse keeper actually end...

The province of Brittany in northwestern France forms a large peninsula. Brittany's coastline is one of the most dangerous, with strong storms, huge waves and strong currents.

Between 1888 and 1904, more than three dozen ships were wrecked here. It is for this reason that a third of France's lighthouses are located here. One of the most popular lighthouses is the lighthouse that is built on a rock called La Jument.

See the start of construction of the lighthouse. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how in 1906 it was possible to firmly secure the foundation of an almost 50-meter tower on such a piece of rock, despite the fact that this place was constantly exposed to 30-meter waves. I don't understand.

La Jument is built directly into the sea on a rocky spur not far from the shore and has a height of 47 meters.

This is how the change of lighthouse keepers took place.

Current technology makes it unnecessary to have a human on board these marine night watches.

So let's go back to our first photo.

The lighthouse gained additional fame thanks to the photographer Jean Guichard.

It all happened on December 21, 1989, Jean decided to photograph the storm from a helicopter. He also took photographs of the lighthouse. But it turned out that the storm was so strong that the waves broke through the doors of the lighthouse and partially washed out the furniture and other things. At this time, the manager Theodore Malgorn was in the lighthouse, awaiting evacuation.

Theodore, hearing the sound of a helicopter, mistook it for a rescue helicopter. He went down to the “back” doors of the lighthouse and went outside.

This exact moment is captured in the photo - the lighthouse was covered by a 20-30 meter wave.

It is worth noting that thanks to his reaction (Theodore rushed back inside the lighthouse) he remained alive.

This video of the Marais lighthouse was filmed on December 7, 2007, at “Raz de Sein” on the western tip of France, in Brittany, on a very cloudy and stormy day. The Marais Lighthouse in France seems like some kind of fantastic outpost on the edge of civilization