Shades of blue span through the horizon. An electric blue lagoon, a cobalt sea and an azure sky. From atop Minicoy lighthouse, MV Kavarathi anchored off the vast lagoon looks like a paper ship. Tourists try to retrace the long boat ride from the ship to the jetty as the bored watchman regulates traffic on the narrow ladder leading up the tower. Metal halide lamps have replaced oil lamps, now showcased in the top chamber. But a thermometer and a clock, built in London at the time of the beacon’s commissioning in 1885, still work. The 41.7-metre-high lighthouse, the archipelago’s Mt Everest, illuminates up to 40 nautical miles. But even sailors voyaging the Pacific and the Atlantic dream of it. It is the first sign on their way back home. The legendary island of seafarers has
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