Lighthouse of the Week, December 23-29, 2018: Scoglio Porcelli, Sicily, Italy

I've been thinking a lot about Sicily in the past couple of days, as Sicily's own volcano, Mount Etna, has entered into a new eruptive pattern with a flank eruption, something it hasn't done for a decade.  And the last time it did this, no significant damage was done, but just after the turn of the century, a flank eruption lava flow destroyed a ski lift station and some tourist-service buildings.  So it always bears watching, and it's also enjoyable to watch (especially if it isn't destroying something), which is good for now.

Since I've been thinking about Sicily, I decided to cast about for lighthouses.  Surprisingly, even though Sicily has quite a few lighthouses, I've only featured two of them here before -- the truly stunning Strombolicchio, and the more traditional, but still scenic, Faro di Santa Croce ad Augusta.

I performed my traditional image search, found the one I'm featuring this week, and then discovered that it's connnected to some other nearby lighthouses.  So that made my life simpler, for awhile, because I'm going to feature the other lighthouses to which it is connected.  You'll see how it's connected to them shortly.

This week's lighthouse is the Scoglio Porcelli, which is located on its own island off the north end of the western coast of Sicily.  And pretty much all that's on the island is the lighthouse (it's not a big island).  The nearest city on the main island is Trapani.

Rather than utilize the esteemed Lighthouse Directory, for the stats on the Scoglio Porcelli, I'm using the Lighthouse Explorer.  Here's the full entry.  The stats I always look at are the height - 82 feet; the type - a round masonry tower;  the color - white; when it was established - 1904;  and the distance the light can be seen from - 11 miles or so.

Here are some pictures. I always like to find pictures of lighthouses that show the view from the water;  in this case, that's all I could find.

This one is high-definition

Now, about the connection to other lighthouses -- it turns out there's a regatta (a sailboat race) called the Regata dei Cinque Fari, which is basically the Regatta of the Five Lighthouses.  This is really a long (140 mile) race in the middle of summer, so there is a good amount of daylight. One of the five is the Scoglio Porcelli.   The map below shows the route and the lighthouses.   The map also provides a locator for the Scoglio Porcelli, conveniently.

Now, the Web site for the regatta also has a page for each of the five lighthouses, and I decided it would be fun to feature each of them in the upcoming weeks.  So the first month of 2019 will have four posts about the other four lighthouses seen by the sailors competing in the Regata de Cinque Fari.  I think it'll be fun.