The agreement of the Lighthouse Commission determined to build a lighthouse in the vicinity of Ribadeo, choosing the island as Pancha so that the entrance of the estuary would illuminate from the west and also would mark the low known Panchorro and Arredo.
This site, and especially the one known as "Torre vella", located to its height but on land, had served as reference mark to the fishermen and sailors who looked for the entrance to the port of Ribadeo.
The project for the Pancha Island lighthouse was reduced to a fifth-order light with the only signal function for the entrance to the estuary and the Ribadese port. It was probably the first entrusted to the engineer Marcelo Sánchez Movellán and was approved in March of 1857.
In the eighties a new lighthouse was built next to the old one, with the standardized form of cylindrical tower painted with black and white stripes, of concrete of 3 meters of diameter and 12,70 meters of height, that raises the new light to 28 meters over the sea. It entered service in 1983 replacing the old lighthouse, and today it is fully automated.
Curiosities, myths and legends
In the estuary of Ribadeo are the remains of a galleon of the s. XVI discovered in 2011 during one of the periodic dredging that takes place in the estuary to remove sediments from the Eo River and increase the draft of the area.
It is known of the galleon that it was a ship of great tonnage, of 32 meters of length and that agrees with the characteristics of the galleon "Santiago de Galicia" that sank in 1597 in the Galician estuary and was part of the rest of the Invincible Armada.
It is 4 to 7 meters deep and its value is due to the technical characteristics of its construction since it possessed all the advances of its time, such as the helmet lined with lead to protect the wood and to promote navigability .
In addition, it is a ship similar to the "Mary Rose", warship Henry VIII of England which is the only warship of the sixteenth century rescued from the sea and can be visited in the port of Portsmouth (England).
