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Lighthouse overnights offered at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels this spring & fall

Youth groups can now reserve spring and fall dates for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s Lighthouse Overnight Adventures program. Dates include select Fridays and Saturdays, April 3–June 27, and again Sept. 4–Oct. 30, with advanced reservations needed.

Under the guidance of a museum educator, youth group participants can experience the rustic life of a lighthouse keeper while spending the night in the historic 1879 Hooper Strait Lighthouse, located on CBMM’s 18-acre campus along the St. Michaels Harbor.

Participants will travel back through time to explore the adventurous, exciting, and sometimes dangerous life of a late 19th-century lighthouse keeper. Through educator-led activities, participants try their hand at the keeper’s traditional duties, listen to stories, and discover facts and clues about living in a lighthouse, navigation, and Bay history through games and puzzles. The experience can also be used toward earning badges for Girl Scouts of America, Boy Scouts of America, and the U.S. Lighthouse Society scout patch program, or just for fun among all groups and their chaperones.

Built in 1879, the screwpile, cottage-style lighthouse once lit the way past Hooper Strait, nearly 39 miles south of St. Michaels. The lighthouse was slated for demolition in 1966, when the museum purchased the lighthouse and moved it to its current location. The lighthouse is one of only three of its kind still in existence on the Chesapeake.

The adventure program is $40 per person, with a 12-person minimum, 18-person maximum, for both students and their chaperones. The fee includes one overnight stay in the lighthouse, a dedicated museum facilitator, the cost of program activities, two days admission to CBMM, and a souvenir patch. On the weekend of the program, groups may also choose to add-on a drop-in scenic river cruise aboard the 1920 buyboat Winnie Estelle at a discounted rate, subject to seasonal availability. Space is limited and reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. Boat rides are weather permitting. For inquiries or to make a reservation, visit cbmm.org/lighthouseovernights.