Tours

As indicated in our overall plans, we intend to open the lighthouse to public tours as soon as we conduct initial maintenance and preservation, and can ensure public safety. One of our first steps was to work with the Coast Guard to reconstruct the storage platform underneath the lighthouse that was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in 2003; that work was completed at the end of April 2005. We intend to focus on the historic preservation of the lighthouse, and to use the historic site for public education and cultural activities. Our goal is to open the offshore lighthouse for public tours, initially on weekends during the boating season.

Our vision of a lighthouse “tour” starts with a visit to the Annapolis Maritime Museum, which will serve as our primary shore-based component. Visitors will be given an overview of the lighthouse at the Museum, which will contain special exhibits for this purpose. After a short stay, visitors would then depart from the Museum’s dock to the lighthouse on one of our guided tour boats, arrive at the lighthouse, and board it.

Each tour would be limited in size to about 15-25 visitors because of the space limitations on the lighthouse and on the tour boats.

It is our intent to preserve and restore parts of the interior of the lighthouse to represent the early 20th century, and parts of it to represent the Coast Guard years circa 1950.

After a roughly 45-minute tour, the visitors would then be taken back to shore at the Museum.

We hope to be open for limited tours as soon as we can complete some initial preservation and maintenance activities and ensure public safety, which will hopefully be later this year. We are also currently in negotiations with commercial charter boat operators. We may need to build an expanded dock at the lighthouse to facilitate safe docking and the safe transfer of public visitors from the boat to/from the lighthouse.

In the meantime, if you'd like to see the lighthouse from the closest point of land to it, you can drive to Anne Arundel County's Thomas Point Park. You can find the directions on the Chesapeake Chapter's website. Please note that Anne Arundel County's Thomas Point Park is a limited access park with very few parking spaces. Please call prior to arrival to arrange for entrance: 410-222-7317 or 410-222-1969.

Boat charter companies can also take you on a tour to see the lighthouse without stopping at it or boarding it. An internet search on the terms "Thomas Point lighthouse cruise" may help point you in the right direction to find some of those commercial tours.

Stay tuned for the latest as our plans become more clear in the months ahead.