Watercolor… this is watercolor #2 from a sketch made October 15, 2002… a cold, wet and windy day. The lighthouse on Virginia’s Assateague Island is not quite as close to the sea, as it once was. Atlantic Ocean currents have pushed enough sand, south around the peninsula, so that it now sits sheltered within Tom’s Cove. The 142-foot-tall Assateague light tower was erected in 1867, replacing an earlier 1833 lighthouse. The current light continues as an active Coast Guard facility, with an electric beacon, while the original first-order Fresnel lens survives in display at the Chincoteague Island museum. The light and site are owned by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Assateague light was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.