Green Point (KwaZulu-Natal, Greenpoint, Clansthal)

Second-order Chance Brothers lens floating on a mercury pedestal producing 240,000 candlepower. The Green Point Lighthouse has a red sector covering the Aliwal Shoal, with two racons positioned at Scottburgh and Widenham, which mark the extremities of the Aliwal Shoal.

Green Point lighthouse should not be confused with the other Green Point lighthouse, also often known as Mouille Point lighthouse, in Cape Town. This Green Point lighthouse stands instead in Clansthal, KwaZulu Natal, helps warn ships of the Aliwal Shoal, and was the second last lighthouse to use petroleum vapour burners.

It is also a provincial heritage site, a building or place in South Africa that has historic or cultural importance, and as such has certain legal protections. Erected in 1905 it has a rather unusual cast-iron structure and is painted in red and white striped bands.

Since 1961 the lighthouse has been fully automated and thus without any staff, which was not considered a great loss to lightkeepers, who regarded the lighthouse as isolated, particularly for families, lying as it did at the time amidst canefields.

To avoid Aliwal Shoal ships rely on three lighthouses - Ifafa Beach, Port Shepstone and Green Point. Aliwal Shoal is the rocky remains of an ancient sand dune that is now a reef roughly 5 kilometres off the coast of Umkomaas that is named after the sinking of the ship Aliwal, and houses incredible hard and soft corals and a variety of tropical and subtropical fish. In addition the lighthouse at Ifafa has a radio beacon that has helped prevent further shipwrecks along this coast.