beacon

This is a more obscure destination for the lighthouse aficionado, but hear me out. The moderate five-mile hike around Angel Island — which offers postcard-worthy panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge — offers a delightful scavenger hunt for lighthouses.

Since the late 1800s, the island — a former military installation, quarantine station and immigrant processing and detention site — has had three navigational aids. There was a fog bell station with its own keeper on Point Knox, a promontory on the island’s southwest corner; and small lighthouses on Point Stuart (on the western end) and Point Blunt (on the east side).

After your ferry ride from Tiburon or San Francisco, walk past the park visitor center and up the hill to the paved Perimeter Road. Head to the red, abandoned Camp Reynolds hospital and, to the right of it, pick up the Point Stuart Loop, a narrow earthen path that will lead you to a point on the island’s edge. (Watch out for poison oak!) The unmarked Point Stuart Lighthouse, which clings precariously to the edge of the island below the trail, is off-limits and blocked off by a chain-link fence. But if you’re lucky, you can catch a glimpse of its red roof through the fence.

Get back on Perimeter Road and go south to the well-marked concrete remains of the military’s Battery Ledyard. Take a short but steep path down to those ruins and, from there, look at the rocky point below (which is not accessible by foot). Somewhat embarrassingly, I shouted, “Yeah!” when I saw what was still down at the ocean’s edge: the 3,000-pound bronze fog bell installed in 1886.

In July 1906, the wind-up clockwork mechanism that struck that bell malfunctioned as a dense fog rolled in, just three months after the San Francisco earthquake that killed 3,000 people and destroyed much of the city. Ships had been pouring in as the city rebuilt. The female lighthouse keeper, Juliet Fish Nichols, alone in the fog bell station, struck the bell by hand for a grueling 20 hours and 35 minutes at the same rate as the automated mechanism — twice every 15 seconds — until the weather cleared.

After marveling at the bell, take Perimeter Road east toward Point Blunt. From the road, you can plainly see the automated green flash of the Point Blunt Lighthouse, which is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard and off limits to the public.

The loop took me three hours, with stops. Cellphone service is surprisingly great, and I used Google Maps to help find the lighthouses. The welcome center was closed when I visited, but I got three well-earned stamps for my U.S. Lighthouse Society passport from the bike rental stand.

The Sussex Beacon has made history with its latest LGBTQIA+ initiative.

On 16 July, the Brighton-based charity announced that it was “refreshing its approach to palliative and end of life care services,” by becoming Britain’s first hospice dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Under the “landmark development,” The Sussex Beacon will offer inclusive care with expertise in specialist HIV care.

While the organisation is setting up a new one-of-a-kind hospice service, it has decades of experience offering accessible health care for those living with HIV.

Since 1994, The Sussex Beacon has been a prominent and cherished resource for local residents in the Brighton and Hove, as well as the surrounding Greater Sussex communities.

In a statement, CEO Rachel Brett expressed her excitement over the charity’s incredible feat.

“The LGBTQ+ community built The Beacon, and now we will be giving it back, stronger and more inclusive than ever. It was originally founded to offer care in a safe, accepting space for people dying with AIDS-related illnesses,” she said.

“Thanks to advances in HIV treatment, our focus has moved to ensure that people across local communities are getting the help and support they need. Further to this, we are delighted that we can use the fantastic facility that we have to refresh our offer of hospice care for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Fortunately, the new inclusive palliative care will be delivered with the support of the NHS. However, to achieve long-term sustainability, The Sussex Beacon will be relying on charitable funding.

“It’s fair to say we need our community behind us now more than ever. The next few years will be challenging as we make this transition, but with collective support, we’ll create something truly transformative,” Brett concluded.

In a separate statement, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at NHS Sussex, Amy Dissanayake, showcased support for The Sussex Beacon, writing: “We are delighted to be working with The Sussex Beacon as they make this step to enhance the high-quality service they can provide to the local community.

“In addition to the hospice care, their experience in providing specialist community care for people living with HIV is invaluable and fully supports our ambition to bring care out of hospitals where possible, and into communities, either in people’s homes directly or in their local neighbourhood at community hubs.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the team at The Sussex Beacon to make this a reality for our population.”

In addition to offering inclusive palliative care, the longstanding charity will serve as a national resource to other hospices seeking to enhance their services for LGBTQIA+ patients.

For more information on The Sussex Beacon and their new LGBTQIA+ inclusive initiative, click here.