There is no other museum in the United States where the public can see and learn more about the lights that have shone from our nation's lighthouses than the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, Maine. The Museum's extensive collection of Fresnel lenses and other guiding beacons however are not just treasures confined to our seafaring past.
Thanks to a generous donation by Carmanah Technologies of Victoria, British Columbia in Canada, the Maine Lighthouse Museum is now able to publicly exhibit the finest in cutting-edge aids to navigation technology.
Carmanah Technologies has donated one of their light emitting diode (LED) beacons to the Museum for educational purposes so that visitors can learn more about the ever-evolving aids to navigation that continue to help safeguard professional mariners and recreational boaters alike from the dangers of the sea.
The British Columbia firm's LED beacons, which are showing up on buoys and light towers the world over, are uniquely designed so that the LED optic and all of its components (solar panels, batteries and photocell) are contained within one self-contained unit.
"The friendly flash of a light on a buoy or inside a lighthouse might appear the same year after year from a distance, but a closer look at these shining lights of the sea reveals how their guiding powers are dynamic in nature and always keeping pace with the latest in technologies," said Bob Trapani, Jr., director of the Maine Lighthouse Museum.
