Lighting the way around the Sound

In their day — and their day has for the most part passed — lighthouses were high-tech outposts of civilization in the wilderness. In the late 1800s, the shoreline of Puget Sound was mostly trees and rocks, leaving navigators with only the occasional well-placed light or foghorn to warn of dangerous points and guide their way in and out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

They had at their heart an ingenious lens resembling a massive Waterford vase, made in France and shipped around the Horn. So equipped, a lamp that would barely brighten a room could focus its beam for miles across the Sound.

Today, a lighthouse is more nostalgia than practicality.

"For pleasure boaters, we always say they're a welcoming sight," said Sharlene Nelson, who has written several popular lighthouse guides with her husband, Ted.

But for the most part, ships and boats can find their way about with radar, global-positioning systems, navigation software, all sorts of maps and the occasional glance at manmade landmarks like, say, the Seattle skyline. Experienced navigators frown on the practice, but people have found their way around San Juan Island by sighting the landmarks on a restaurant placemat.

Our local lighthouses have been automated, if not outright retired. The modern world has grown up around them and passed them by. But so much of their setting is the same — a little patch of land set off from the developed world around it, with expansive views of the water and beaches to stroll on. They aren't in a wilderness anymore, but the lighthouses around Puget Sound are great little natural parks, peaceful, glittering jewels that offer a break from the surrounding crush of civilization.

We took in a cluster of half a dozen lighthouses in two days, three if you count the breakdown in Port Hadlock. We started in Seattle, working north on the east side of the Sound, then skipping across Whidbey Island to Port Townsend for the trip south. It's a bit much, requiring three ferry trips and so much scheduling, you might hear yourself saying, "If this is Tuesday, this must be Point No Point." So feel free to pick and choose from the smorgasbord.

Alki Point

The bulk of the lighthouses around Puget Sound were designed by Carl Leick, architect for the U.S. Lighthouse Board and keeper of the motto, "Build 'em stout and make 'em last." Washington has more of his work than any other state.

Alki Point was one of his later creations, going up in 1913 and replacing a post lantern that had been marking the spot since 1887. The old lantern was stolen in 1970, then reappeared six years later with a fingerprint that figured prominently in the arrest and conviction of its thief.

"He got a few years in jail, and we got the lantern," said Capt. Gene Davis, director of the Coast Guard Museum on Alaskan Way, where the lantern now resides.

The Alki Point lighthouse can barely be seen from the street and is usually closed. If you want to include it in your tour, visit on the weekend, when it is open from 1:30 to 4 p.m. through August. Groups of eight or more can arrange to tour the lighthouse during the week by calling 206-217-6203. The old Alki Point lantern is visible at the Coast Guard Museum at Pier 36 (1519 Alaskan Way S.; www.rexmwess.com/cgpatchs/cogardmuseum.html), which is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and weekends from 1 to 5 p.m.

Carol Molinari was visiting earlier this summer from her home in Roanoke, Va., and chanced upon the West Point lighthouse in Seattle's Discovery Park while park-hopping around the area.

"This is so calm, so peaceful," she said. "It's wonderful."

Standing out here with a view of the Sound to the south, west and north, it makes sense that the city took over the lighthouse two years ago through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 and incorporated it into Discovery Park. The park has been working the lighthouse into various activities on weekends throughout the summer, including a special event from noon to 4 p.m. this Saturday. Visit its Web site at www.discoverypark.org, or call 206-386-4236 for times and other details.

Mukilteo

If you see one lighthouse this summer, let it be Mukilteo.

The lighthouse's 100th anniversary has workers gussying up Carl Leick's creation from 1906, when the Sound's maritime trade shifted north to handle the lumber spewing forth from Everett's new mills.

"It just captures your heart," said Ellen Koch, president of the Mukilteo Historical Society (http://mukilteohistorical.org). "It's very well-kept. You'll notice it's getting painted right now. I think it's amazing that it's 100 years old and still working, a working lighthouse."

Downstairs, the lighthouse has an extensive display of its history, including a cutaway showing the lighthouse's beefy rough-cut frames, diagonal shiplap sheathing and tongue-in-groove siding. Up the tower's 38 steps, visitors can see the lighthouse's source: a 150-watt halogen bulb shining 12 nautical miles through a banded Fresnel lens.

Designed by the French physicist Augustin Fresnel, this type of lens is cut across its surface so that different sections act like prisms that bend the light out on a horizontal plane. So while the lamp's wick or bulb sends light out in a 360-degree arc, the lens concentrates it and sends it straight out to sea.

Engineers have since figured out ways to get the same effect with plastic lenses only a few feet high. But for serious lighthouse buffs, and there are quite a few out there, the Fresnel (pronounced "FRAY-nel") is the crystalline holy grail.

Where lighthouses once marked the way for boats, they can now serve as milestones for the region's history.

"If you look at the dates of the lighthouses, you can tell the development of the maritime traffic," said Nelson.

The earliest lighthouses appeared on the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the 1850s as ships were ferrying lumber and oysters to the California Gold Rush. In the 1860s, more lumber mills were running around the Sound, and the big sailing ships used the light at Admiralty Head as a target to help them clear the shallow waters around Port Townsend and guide them toward the Whidbey Island shore, where they could fill their sails with wind.

The first lighthouse here was built in 1861 in a wooden building that was replaced by a brick-and-stucco Carl Leick structure in 1903. It was put out in 1922, rendered obsolete by the age of steam and the light at Point Wilson.

It is one of the more shop-worn, with no lamp in the tower and scratched plastic windows clouding the view of Admiralty Inlet. But it is solid, with 18-inch walls that can't help but impress.

"We've had civil engineers who have told us the concrete down there is just fantastic," said Bill Blair, a lighthouse volunteer. "It's lasted 100 years."

The Admiralty Head lighthouse is also one of the most accessible, open all week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in August, then 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Monday in September. (360-240-5584 or www.admiraltyhead.wsu.edu)

Here is another rare sight: an actual working Fresnel lens, with a distinctive, 20-second signal that is 15 seconds of white light followed by a brief flash of red. It sits out past the restored barracks and officers' quarters of Port Townsend's Fort Worden, setting of "An Officer and a Gentleman." Volunteers like Dave Frazeur (pictured, left), a longtime mariner and member of the Coast Guard auxiliary, show off the light from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons from April through September.

Point No Point

Welcome to the oldest lighthouse on Puget Sound, built in 1880. Visitors seem to prefer the beach, a curving strip of sand set among a bank of wild roses. The tower is closed to climbers, but the building is open for free tours on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. through September (360-337-5362).

Eric Sorensen, a former Seattle Times reporter, is author of Northwest Weekend's Boating column. He lives in Kenmore.