I’ve been listening to a podcast where they cover the mystery of the Flannan Island lighthouse and it struck me that i’ve never actually understood how a lighthouse works other than shining a beam of light at the ocean? How do the ships know what do and how to steer through the water?
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In the olden days, certain areas of the ocean could be very dangerous. There might be areas where the water is mostly deep, but some rocks stick up near the surface, so if you sail through there, you’ll hit the hidden rocks and the ship will sink. So, these places get put on maps and ships try to avoid them. But when you are sailing hundreds of miles, it can be hard to tell exactly where you are. It might be dark and stormy, and maybe you know that there is a dangerous area ahead, but it might be 5 miles ahead or 50 miles ahead, so you don’t know where to go to avoid it. So, people build lighthouses near the dangerous areas. The lighthouse gets put on the map, so now, when the ship gets near the lighthouse, the ship knows where it is exactly and where to go to avoid the dangerous area.
Basically, ships navigated with maps, and lighthouses were like landmarks saying “you are here”.
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