Lighting up time in Mojacar

MOJACAR’S lighthouse officially entered into service on the night of September 22.

As its rotating lamp was turned on, the Garrucha installation it replaced went dark. The move was necessary as the neighbouring town’s lighthouse, built 140 years ag, is now dwarfed by buildings and is no longer easily visible to shipping during daylight.

The new lighthouse’s lamp, which can be seen from a distance of 24 sea miles (44.4 kilometres), stands at the municipality’s highest point on the northern side of the Cerro del Moro Manco hill in Mojacar’s Marina de la Torre area.

The €280,000 installation was carried out by the Almeria Ports Authority (APA) and financed by the Inter-port Compensation Fund.

As the Mojacar beacon was switched on, Mojacar’s mayor Rosa Maria Cano emphasised the new location’s importance.

“This puts Mojacar on navigation maps throughout the world,” she declared, while adding that the lighthouse would be a further attraction for tourists and visitors to the municipality.

The now inoperative Garrucha lighthouse is not destined to disappear, revealed the APA’s president Jesus Caicedo.

“Together with Garrucha town hall and mayor, we shall look for alternative uses for the building,” he said.