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150-year-old Florida Keys Lighthouse Illuminated for 1st Time in a Decade

In this Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, boaters watch a sunset behind Alligator Reef Lighthouse off Islamorada, Fla., in the Florida Keys. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
In this Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, boaters watch a sunset behind Alligator Reef Lighthouse off Islamorada, Fla., in the Florida Keys. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
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150-year-old Florida Keys Lighthouse Illuminated for 1st Time in a Decade

In this Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, boaters watch a sunset behind Alligator Reef Lighthouse off Islamorada, Fla., in the Florida Keys. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
In this Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, boaters watch a sunset behind Alligator Reef Lighthouse off Islamorada, Fla., in the Florida Keys. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)

A 150-year-old beacon that helped guide ships through the treacherous Florida Keys coral reefs before GPS, sonar and other technology made it obsolete is shining again as part of a national effort to save historic lighthouses that have dotted the US coast for more than a century.
An Islamorada community group that is spending $6 million to restore and preserve the Alligator Reef Lighthouse turned on its new solar-powered lights on Saturday to remind the public about the effort.
“Alligator Lighthouse was lit in 1873 and it stayed lit until about 2013, and then it went dark for 10 years,” said Rob Dixon, the executive director of Save Alligator Lighthouse, which took over the lighthouse's title in late 2021. “And now our Statue of Liberty is lit once again.”
The lighthouse is named after the USS Alligator, a Navy schooner that ran aground on the reef in 1822 and sank.
Alligator and five other aging lighthouses off the Keys were important maritime navigational aids that once warned ships away from the area's barrier coral reef. But modern-day satellite navigation made open-water lighthouses obsolete and such structures are being disposed of by the General Services Association.
A detailed engineering study of Alligator Lighthouse was completed to determine stabilization needs after many years in highly corrosive conditions, The Associated Press reported.
Dixon said an engineering study determined that it will take six years and $5 million to $6 million dollars to save the Alligator Lighthouse.
“There’s nobody in this community that doesn’t want to help our project,” he said.
Dixon said fundraising is well underway with about $500,000 already raised, including $215,000 from the Monroe County Tourist Development Council.

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Giant Coral Colony Discovered in Red Sea

This natural wonder could become a key highlight for tourists at AMAALA. Photo: RSG
This natural wonder could become a key highlight for tourists at AMAALA. Photo: RSG
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Giant Coral Colony Discovered in Red Sea

This natural wonder could become a key highlight for tourists at AMAALA. Photo: RSG
This natural wonder could become a key highlight for tourists at AMAALA. Photo: RSG

Red Sea Global (RSG) has announced the significant discovery of a giant coral colony in the Red Sea (of the Pavona species) within the waters of AMAALA on the northwestern coast of Saudi Arabia.

Rivalling the size of the current world record holder—a 32-by-34-meter colony found in the Pacific—this remarkable new find is the largest coral colony of this type documented in the Red Sea to date.

According to a statement issued by the RSG on Sunday, this natural wonder could become a key highlight for tourists at AMAALA on diving excursions, offering a unique and unforgettable experience.

Access would be permitted in line with RSG’s responsible tourism ethos, minimizing any potential impact while allowing visitors to witness the breathtaking beauty of the Red Sea’s underwater world.

“The discovery of a coral of such extraordinary dimensions demonstrates the ecological significance as well as the pristine beauty of the Red Sea,” said RSG’s Head of Environmental Protection and Regeneration Ahmed Alansari.

“At RSG, we believe it is critically important to protect our coral reefs. In particular, these giants represent a time capsule of information, providing the ideal tools for tracing past oceanographic transformations that can help us model responses to future environmental changes,” he stated.

“Understanding how this coral has survived for so long will be crucial for protecting other reefs in the Red Sea and potentially all over the world, for generations to come,” he added.

According to the statement, determining the age of these giant corals with minimal impact is challenging due to the invasive nature of accurate dating techniques and the absence of published growth rates for this particular species of coral in the Red Sea. However, estimations have been made based on the coral’s size, growth rates of this species found in the Pacific, and results from photogrammetry efforts. Using these tools, the coral cluster is estimated to be between 400 and 800 years old.

Upcoming studies by researchers from RSG and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) will help pinpoint the coral’s age more accurately and provide insights into the environmental conditions in which it has thrived.

Coral in the Red Sea is known for its particular resilience, adapting genetically to naturally warmer waters and higher salinity levels. This colony will be subject to ongoing monitoring and research to understand what makes these giants so resilient to multiple stressors over long time periods and to help inform conservation efforts for other reefs in the Red Sea and around the world.
The two RSG scientists who discovered the giant coral colony, Rhonda Suka and Sylvia Jagerroos, are now leading its mapping and documentation.
Suka said: “Finding such an invaluable specimen was a truly mind-boggling experience. This colony’s resilience gives us hope for the continued success of corals in the Red Sea, particularly in the face of increasing environmental and anthropogenic stress.”

“A coral this massive is incredibly rare. Mapping these giants is an important part of conserving them, something the ‘Map the Giants’ project is doing on a global scale by identifying and documenting these vital giant coral structures, which it classes as anything larger than five meters. This is the second colony RSG has submitted to the project in the last few months,” said Jagerroos.

The statement disclosed that AMAALA is set to welcome its first guests later this year with the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s most comprehensive health and wellness destination. Launching with more than 1,400 hotel rooms across eight luxury resorts, it will welcome some of the most renowned wellness operators globally, offering a wide array of programs tailored to diverse lifestyles and well-being needs.
This follows RSG’s other destination, The Red Sea, which began welcoming guests in 2023 and now has five hotels open.