Kurmrags lighthouse
The Kurmrags lighthouse is located on the Ķurmrags foreland. It is the most pronounced foreland in the Vidzeme part of the Gulf of Rīga. It was built in 1924. In the storm of 1967 it was destroyed and its light was switched off. It was originally located on the highest part of the shore but during the storm of 2005 it was washed into the sea, where it still stands awry a few metres offshore. It is clearly visible from a distance.
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| Kurmrags lighthouse | |
| Date of construction | 1924 |
| Height | 14 m |
| Height of light | 19 m |
| Range | 10 nmi |
| Location | Limbazhi District, Salacgriva municipality |
After repeated requests of local fishermen, a lighthouse was built in the headland of Kurmrags in 1923 as the landmark location between the ports of Ainazhi and Riga. Originally, it stood in the meadow next to the steep slope of the coastline. During a tornado in 1967, the lighthouse was destroyed and the light was turned off. The next tornado in 2005 flushed the lighthouse into the sea, leaving it all warped in the sea couple of metres away from the shore. The Ķurmrags lighthouse is popularly styled as the Smugglers Lighthouse, and the near bay – as the Smugglers Bay, because at the early 1920s it was one of the nearby coastal channels for supplying cheap alcohol from Estonia to Latvia.
Andris Cekuls
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