The ancient charm of Naozhou Island

The list of places of historic interest and scenic beauty is long. The scenic spots include Yanhai Stone Beach and Naozhou lighthouse equally famous as the lighthouses in London and at Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Naozhou Lighthouse

Naozhou Lighthouse is 23 meters high, 5 meters wide at the base and 4 meters wide at the top. The lighthouse was built by laying chiseled stones without using any slurry. The base of the lighthouse is a square stone block, and the upper part is a cone. At the top of the lighthouse is a round lamp holder room projecting from the tower. At the bottom of the lamp holder is a big close-end rotary tray with mercury inside to hold the whole lamp holder stand. The lamp holder stand is a round lens cluster that is 2 meters in diameter and the cluster is made up of more than 160 crystal triangular arc lens. A convex is installed on both sides of the lamp holder stand and a 400-kilowatt fluorescent lamp is hung at the center of the stand, which is driven by a motor and rotates a circle every 12 seconds. Strong light refracts through the crystal triangular lens to different directions and different angles and finally gathers at the two convexes and light beams in horizontal direction as far as 26 sea miles. Lookouts are built outside the lamp holder room and they can be reached by climbing the steps. It is really relaxing and marvelous to enjoy the sea view there. 

Yanhai stone beach

Yanhai Stone Beach, with an area of 2 sq. km, has peculiar landform and charming scenery. The beach stretches to the sea level like two wings. Between the two cliff wings are jagged rocks of grotesque shapes and a sand beach that is more than 100 meters long and 300 meters wide. The soft and silver-white sand half-circled the 200-meter-long shallow sea, the unique natural bath beach. The whole bath beach looks like a Chinese character “凹”. With stormy waves from the sea, the bath beach seems to be sweeping and surging all year around. However, it is thrilling and absolutely safe to swim or surf here as the landform here is flat and there are no dangerous whirls. So you can enjoy yourselves here and don’t have to worry about anything.

On a summer night, you can rent a tent and sleep on the beach. If you get up early in the morning, you can climb to the top of the cliff and watch the sunrise. It is as spectacular as seeing sunrise on Mount Tai (In Shandong Province. As one of the five sacred mountains in China, Mount Tai is usually associated with sunrise, birth and renewal), but the sun here seems to be nearer and clearer.