Lighthouses in Chile

Chile has a large and intricate coastal line of 4000 km with myriad of islands, islets, straits, bays, and fjords.

Moreover, three waterways between the Pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean, namely the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel and the Drake Passage, run at the Chilean coats. In order to mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, safe entries to harbors the Chilean authorities maintain 650 lighthouses from the boundary to Peru until the Atlantic ocean.

On 18 September 1857, the first lighthouse in Chile, the "Faro Angeles", was inaugurated in Valparaíso.

In 1867, the Danish Enrique Siemsen was appointed chief of the "Servicio de Faros". He built the Faro Corona in Ancud, Punta Caldera in Atacama, Punta Tortugas in Coquimbo, Isla Quiriquina in Quiriquina, Punta Galera and Punta Niebla in Corral.

The first lighthouses in Chile used colza oil as fuel, but in 1878 it was replaced by Bunsen burners.

George Slight designed and built in the 1890s more than 70 of today's historic lighthouses of Chile. He was a Scottish engineer who moved to Chile and eventually became the head of the Chilean Maritime Signaling Service.

As of 2013, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) lists 650 lighthouses in Chile and according to Faros de Chile 18 of them were inhabited in 2009.

There are no lightvessels in Chile, but 2 shipwrecks are used as a basis for lighthouses: the County of Peebles is used as breakwater in the harbour of Punta Arenas, and the Capitán Leonidas is located in the Messier Channel.

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Wikipedia