 It marked the southern entrance to the Florida Straits from the Gulf of Mexico and was active until the 1940s.The abandoned lighthouse was briefly reactivated during the 1970s, when Bahamas police set up a post on nearby Cay Sal Island to watch for drug smugglers.Many Cubans attempting to cross the Straits of Florida on makeshift boats and rafts reached this cay and wrote their names in the ruins of the lighthouse.