Point Calimere Lighthouse

Nearest Railway station is Nagapattinam-about 50 Km from point Calimere. There is a cart track about 5 Km from Kodikkarai village to Point Calimere through forest area for which permission has to be obtained from Forest Department before entering the region and using the cart track.‘Calimere’ is the Dutch word for beautiful. Towards the end of 16th century, the Dutch contingent had camped on this coast and so the name. They must have raised some land mark for the identification but no such ruins are seen now. The first ever lighthouse was provided here in the 8thcentury during the regime of Raj-raja Chola. It was a mound of stones over which logs were burnt as the source of illumination. The present Lighthouse was built in 1890 during British regime for the benefit of the vessels approaching the port of Nagapattinam. It was an ordinary wick lamp. In 1902 a 4th order optic with occulting flashing light was introduced in place of wick lamp. In 1926 when the LH Expert Mr Stevenson visited the place, he mentioned in his report that he could not enter the tower as it was locked and the light keeper was absent.The ‘Dallan Mixer’ equipment operating on DA gas,with three panel 150 mm size revolving optic, of AGA make(Ex Armagon LH),was installed in 1933 in place of the 4th order optic. This equipment was earlier at Armagon lighthouse which was abandoned in 1928. The same equipment functioned satisfactorily till 1995. The entire equipment was replaced by a 300 mm drum optic with electronic flasher (JLWL) &12 V 100 W halogen lamp operating on Batteries charged by Solar panels, on 31st March 1996.In 1986 a ‘Racon’ transmitting code ‘K’ was installed on the tower by ONGC for their oil exploration programme.