The lighthouses in Denmark have many designs and sometimes fun locations in the landscape along the coasts.
Recently, the Danish Maritime Authority visited Tunø to oversee the state of the island’s lighthouse. Tunø Lighthouse is special because it is the only lighthouse in Denmark located in a church tower. In the old days, the local priest was also the lighthouse keeper, and it was therefore a common joke that "on Tunø the priest sleeps with the lighthouse keeper's wife".
In 1801, the church tower was rebuilt into a lighthouse, and in 1906 the tower was raised, so the flame height is now 31 meters above sea level. As you can probably sense in the video above, the lighthouse guides the ships as a sector light with white, red and green sectors. The intensity of the white sector, which marks several fairways around Tunø, is 12 nautical miles with an occulting feature every five seconds. The lighthouse characteristic for Tunø Lighthouse is therefore seen with the abbreviation Oc.WRG.5s in the nautical chart.
With Tunø Lighthouse as example, the Danish Maritime Authority is celebrating WAtoN Day today. WAtoN Day was established by the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities, IALA, with the aim of drawing attention to the importance of aids to navigation in relation to maritime safety and protection of marine environment.