Photo1
Tahiti is famous for Paul Gaugin (1848-1903) (Ref.1) but is well known for Captain Cook (1728-1779) also.
The three great voyages of Cook are without doubt extraordinary. He sailed to Tahiti in 1769 by the request from Royal Society to observe 'Transit of Venus across the Sun'.
By the way, as you may be familiar from movies etc., in 1788 (nine years after Cook), Battleship Bounty known for "Mutiny on the Bounty" arrived at this very same place. A monument is built in memory of the Bounty (Photo2).
Photo2: Monument of Bounty landing
Lighthouse in Photos3~5 also stands at this place. This was built by the famous company "Lighthouse Stevenson" (founded by Robert Stevenson, 1772-1850), 100 years later in 1867 (first year of Meiji era).
Photo3: The lighthouse
Photo4
Photo5: Entrance of the lighthouse
I found a very interesting thing as I looked close to this lighthouse. It is shown in the photo on the top, an enlarged picture of something seen in the left part of photo5. In my next posting I will write about it. It is about the "Story of coincidence in history – in relation to the Meiji Restoration."
At about the same time, i.e. the early period of Meiji era, several lighthouses were build in Japan and major ones were designed by Richard Branton who was trained at "Lighthouse Stevenson."
