You get a stripe! And you get a stripe! And you get diamonds! Have you ever wondered why lighthouses are often painted with stripes around them? The stripes serve as a daytime identification aid or daymark allowing mariners to distinguish between the lighthouses. One of the most famous striped lighthouse is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s known for the distinctive daymark of four spirals (two black and two white that extend around the tower 1 and 1/2 times). At 198-feet, it is the tallest brick lighthouse structure in the United States. Standing 156-feet tall, the nearby Bodie Island Lighthouse also has a distinctive daymark pattern of horizontal, alternating black and white stripes. Diamonds are a lighthouse’s best friend. The Cape Lookout Lighthouse, part of Cape Lookout National Seashore, also sports a unique day mark. It’s painted with a distinctive black and white diagonal checkerboard, or diamond, pattern. Not bad. What lighthouses hav...