When I visited the Punta Higüero Lighthouse in Rincón, Puerto Rico, in May 2016, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at.
I knew it was a lighthouse.
I knew we couldn’t go inside.
I knew the walkway around it offered spectacular views of the ocean.
And I knew there were three enormous iguanas wandering around the grounds.
Those iguanas made it into my travel journal.
The fact that I was standing beside the replacement for a lighthouse nearly destroyed by one of Puerto Rico’s most devastating earthquakes?
Not so much.
Nearly ten years later, I finally discovered the story hiding inside those old vacation photographs.
And it completely changed the way I remembered this little stop in Rincón.
A Day Along Puerto Rico’s Western Coast
On May 9, 2016, my son Zack and I set out with my mom and stepdad for a day exploring Puerto Rico’s western coast.
We drove north from Cabo Rojo through Aguadilla toward Rincón, with beautiful glimpses of the coastline appearing below us along the way.
Our day would eventually include a famous surfing beach, the strange dome of Puerto Rico’s abandoned BONUS nuclear reactor, the lighthouse at Punta Higüero, and several hours at Rincón Beach.
At the time, the lighthouse was simply another stop along the way.
But its story began more than a century before we arrived.
Why Was Punta Higüero Lighthouse Built?
Punta Higüero sits on Puerto Rico’s western coast beside the Mona Passage, the body of water separating Puerto Rico from Hispaniola.
It has long been an important—and sometimes dangerous—route for maritime traffic through the Caribbean.
During the final decades of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico developed a network of lighthouses designed to help ships safely navigate the island’s coastline.
Punta Higüero was part of that system.
The original lighthouse entered service in 1893.
And it looked almost nothing like the lighthouse standing there today.
The Spanish-era lighthouse was an ornate masonry structure, with its tower incorporated into the keeper’s residence. Arched openings and decorative brickwork gave the building far more architectural flair than the simple concrete tower that would eventually replace it.
From its position above the coastline, its light helped vessels navigate the waters offshore.
For approximately 25 years, it stood watch over the Mona Passage.
Then, on October 11, 1918, the earth beneath western Puerto Rico moved.
Punta Higüero wasn’t the only lighthouse we encountered during this trip. Farther south in Cabo Rojo, we also visited Los Morrillos Lighthouse, another surviving piece of Puerto Rico’s Spanish lighthouse network.
The 1918 San Fermín Earthquake
At approximately 10:14 on the morning of October 11, a powerful earthquake struck off Puerto Rico’s western coast.
Known today as the 1918 San Fermín earthquake, the event is generally estimated at roughly magnitude 7.1 to 7.5.
Its epicenter was beneath the Mona Passage—the very waters Punta Higüero Lighthouse had been built to watch.
The earthquake caused widespread destruction across western Puerto Rico.
Buildings collapsed. Homes were destroyed. Infrastructure and communication systems were damaged.
Mayagüez and Aguadilla were among the communities hit particularly hard.
But the shaking wasn’t the end of the disaster.
The earthquake also generated a tsunami.
Water first withdrew from portions of the coastline before surging back toward shore, inundating coastal areas already damaged by the earthquake.
More than 100 people are believed to have died as a result of the combined disaster, although historical estimates vary.
High above the water at Punta Higüero, the lighthouse escaped the worst of the tsunami.
It did not escape the earthquake.
What Happened to the Original Rincón Lighthouse?
The earthquake severely damaged the original Punta Higüero Lighthouse.
Cracks tore through its masonry. Windows fractured. Plaster fell from the walls, and the structure was compromised badly enough that simply repairing it was no longer the best option.
The lighthouse had survived the earthquake.
But the building’s story was essentially over.
There was another problem, though.
The Mona Passage hadn’t stopped being dangerous just because the lighthouse had been damaged.
Ships still needed the beacon.
By this time, Puerto Rico was under United States control, and responsibility for its lighthouses had passed to American authorities.
Rather than restore the badly damaged Spanish structure, officials eventually decided to replace it.
The elaborate lighthouse that had stood above Rincón since the 1890s would disappear.
A very different one would take its place.
Building the Lighthouse We See Today
Construction of a replacement lighthouse began in the early 1920s.
Where the original had been decorative, the new lighthouse was practical.
Where the original relied heavily on masonry, the replacement used reinforced concrete.
The new Punta Higüero Lighthouse rose approximately 70 feet above the point as a simple cylindrical tower.
It wasn’t as romantic as its Spanish predecessor.
But perhaps that wasn’t the point.
This lighthouse had been born from the remains of one that nature had already broken.
And one important piece of the earlier lighthouse survived the transition: lantern equipment from the original structure was incorporated into its replacement.
In January 1922, Punta Higüero’s light returned to service.
The earthquake had destroyed the lighthouse as people knew it.
It hadn’t managed to extinguish the light for good.
From Shipping Landmark to Surfing Landmark
Punta Higüero continued serving mariners as the decades passed, eventually becoming automated.
But something else was happening around the lighthouse.
Rincón was becoming famous for an entirely different relationship with the ocean.
Surfing.
Puerto Rico’s western coast receives powerful Atlantic swells, and the beaches around Punta Higüero became prized among surfers.
Rincón’s reputation grew dramatically after the 1968 World Surfing Championships brought international attention to the area.
Places such as Domes Beach—named for the distinctive dome of the former BONUS nuclear reactor nearby—became part of Rincón’s surfing identity.
The waves below the lighthouse were no longer simply something ships needed help navigating.
People were traveling across the world specifically to ride them.
And the lighthouse that once existed primarily to protect maritime traffic gradually became something else as well:
A Rincón landmark.
Just below the lighthouse, Domes Beach takes its name from the distinctive dome of Puerto Rico’s abandoned BONUS nuclear reactor, another unusual piece of history my son and I encountered during this same day in Rincón.
My Visit to Punta Higüero Lighthouse
Which finally brings us back to May 2016.
By the time my son and I arrived, the area around the lighthouse had become a place where visitors could walk, enjoy the coastline, and take in enormous views across the water.
We couldn’t enter the lighthouse during our visit, but that didn’t matter much.
The setting was beautiful.
We wandered around the grounds and followed the walkway overlooking the ocean.
And then there were the iguanas.
Several of them.
Big ones.
Apparently, those warranted documentation in my journal.
The 1918 earthquake did not.
In my defense, nobody had handed me the history yet.
After exploring the lighthouse, we continued to Rincón Beach for what became one of my favorite parts of the day.
Teaching My Son to Catch a Wave
My son had a little boogie board my mom had bought him, and he wanted to try surfing with it.
Unfortunately, there was a slight flaw in his plan.
The waves were tiny.
Still, I helped him figure out how to position himself and when to start kicking as a wave approached.
And eventually, he got one.
One good wave caught the board and carried him toward shore.
Was it exactly the sort of surfing that made Rincón internationally famous?
No.
Was he delighted?
Absolutely.
And therefore it counted.
Afterward, we went snorkeling.
We only had one snorkel and mask at the time, so we took turns exploring what was beneath the water.
There were fish everywhere—yellow and gray, with some surprisingly large ones swimming almost directly around our feet.
I found a black sea urchin and showed my son. Later, I spotted a white one and a good-sized crab.
All of this was happening remarkably close to shore.
We eventually bought another snorkeling set later that day because taking turns simply wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
Some experiences are better when you can point underwater and say, LOOK AT THAT, without first having to surrender the equipment.
And Then Murph Arrived
Actually, that’s unfair.
Murph had apparently been awake before we were.
Earlier that morning, my son and I had been sitting together on my parents’ miradora, or observation deck.
A hummingbird flew nearby and perched on a branch.
For a brief moment, everything was peaceful.
Then Paco came running outside, jumped on my son, and broke his chair.
My son fell through the frame and scraped up his back.
Vacation serenity successfully terminated.
Later, after our afternoon in Rincón, dark clouds began gathering overhead.
We decided it was time to leave the beach.
Just as we pulled out of the parking lot, the storm broke.
And it followed us—or we followed it—most of the way back toward Cabo Rojo.
Then came Walgreens.
My son had been developing a strange rash or hives for several days, so we stopped for Benadryl. While we were there, I bought that second snorkeling set for future adventures.
By the end of the day, we had managed a lighthouse, iguanas, surfing, snorkeling, sea urchins, a crab, a broken chair, mysterious hives and a Puerto Rican thunderstorm.
Pretty standard family vacation, really.
What Stayed With Me
When I originally wrote about Punta Higüero Lighthouse, I gave it only a few sentences.
The lighthouse was small.
We couldn’t go inside.
The walkway was nice.
The ocean views were fantastic.
There were the big iguanas.
And off we went.
That’s one of my favorite things about revisiting these old trips for TMP Origins.
Sometimes I get to discover a destination twice.
The first time, I experience whatever happens to be in front of me.
The second time, years later, I finally understand what was there before me.
When I look at my photographs of Punta Higüero now, I don’t just see the little lighthouse we stopped at before going to the beach.
I see the second chapter of a much older story.
I see the Spanish lighthouse that once occupied this point.
I see the morning in 1918 when western Puerto Rico shook.
I see a coastline struck by a tsunami.
And I see the decision to put another beacon back where the first one had fallen.
The earthquake destroyed the lighthouse that stood here.
But it couldn’t destroy the light.
Planning a Visit to Punta Higüero Lighthouse
Punta Higüero Lighthouse—also known as Faro de Punta Higüero or the Rincón Lighthouse—is located on Puerto Rico’s western coast near some of Rincón’s best-known surfing beaches.
The surrounding area is worth visiting even if you can’t enter the lighthouse itself. The elevated location provides beautiful views of the coastline and Mona Passage, and it pairs naturally with other historic and coastal destinations around Rincón.
If you’re anything like me, though, learn the lighthouse’s story before you go.
Otherwise, you might return home with photographs of a landmark shaped by one of Puerto Rico’s greatest natural disasters…
…and write three sentences about the iguanas.
Although, in fairness, they were really big iguanas.
Rincón was only one chapter of our journey along Puerto Rico’s western coast. Farther south, our trip also took us to La Parguera, a former fishing community whose relationship with the sea shaped an entirely different story.
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