The Blue Lighthouse

Sunday we spent lolling in the heat, letting the fans attempt to combat the effects of sun and humidity. A rain shower at midday cooled things briefly. We read, snoozed, pottered. And we showered.

Le Phare Bleu is named for the blue lighthouse atop the Västra Banken, which is parked at the marina dock. The lighthouse is not an afterthought. Västra Banken is a lightship. She was built in Stockholm in 1900/01 and spent most of her life in different locations, playing the role of lighthouse. Lightships are anchored for years at a time in spots where it is impossible to build a lighthouse and where currents, rocks, shoals, wrecks and other marine hazards make a lightship more than useful. Lightships are named for their location and their names change when their posting changes. The Västra Banken had three or four such name changes, ending her lighthouse career on the Västra Banken where she stayed more than a decade. She was decommissioned and was used as a houseboat for a time. Finally, she was bought, extensively refurbished, and shipped to Grenada.

The Vastra Banken

She contains the marina offices, a fancy restaurant (WW wouldn’t take me), a toilet (marked “toilet”), a urinal (marked “pissoire”), a lounge, a video library, a book exchange, and four showers. The showers are entire rooms with teak flooring, a sink and toilet, a little teak slat table, and each room has a porthole at just about passerby eye level. The doors bear the brass plaques with the Swedish names of the original areas on the ship: machine shop, engine room, etc.

The Västra Banken is built of steel or iron...whatever, her sides are riveted heavy metal. One of the Palm Tree Marine Services people warned me before my first shower, “If you bend over to pick up the soap, keep your bum away from the hull. You’ll burn yourself.” She was not lying. I put my hand on the hull very briefly, and withdrew it in haste. Very warm. Hot. Searing. The net result, apart from possible bottom burns, is that the showers can duo as saunas. It’s reasonably unpleasant to get out of a cool shower, only to be as sweaty as when you began before you can begin to dress. Fortunately, stepping out into the merely 34C outside cools you right off.
So passed our Sunday as we waited for Monday and the reinstallation of the fuel tanks.