Joy and Patrick Tubby, who live in England, have both been passionate about lighthouses for a long time. In fact, they were engaged and married at lighthouses. Joy wrote the first edition of her book Lighthouse Accommodation Britain and Worldwide back in 1999, and the book has been updated several times.

Joy is an active volunteer and Trust secretary for the Happisburgh Lighthouse, the UK’s only privately operated working lighthouse. She is also an active volunteer for the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, or ALK. And she also manages an extensive website at lighthouseaccommodation.co.uk.

Joy’s husband Patrick has been chairman of the Happisburgh Lighthouse Trust for nearly 20 years, and is an active volunteer for the Friends of Happisburgh Lighthouse. He’s the East Anglia regional representative for the ALK.

In 1988, Burnt Island Light in Boothbay Harbor became one of the last Maine light stations to be automated and destaffed. In February 1998, the station was transferred to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Keepers of Burnt Island Light (KBIL) is a non-profit organization that was formed in 2009. Its mission is to support the restoration, preservation and maintenance of Burnt Island and its historic buildings and nature trails.

Our guest, Mary Jo Marquis, works in administration for the marine sciences bureau of the DMR and is also the vice president of Keepers of Burnt Island Light. The primary topic is the current opening for a caretaker couple to live on the island this summer. The caretakers will live on the island and help welcome visitors, share the history of the lighthouse, and maintain the property.

Rick St. Pierre, originally from New Bedford, Massachusetts, had a 20 year career in the Coast Guard that included some time as the officer in charge at Boon Island Light Station in Maine. He was the officer in charge 1973 to 1975. In this interview, he remembers the daily duties on the island as well as the station’s resident ghost.

Rick’s years in the Coast Guard also included 3 ½ years on the cutter Eagle, on a weather cutter off the east coast of Canada, and on the cutter Storis, enforcing maritime law around Alaska. He lived at West Chop Light Station on Martha’s Vineyard for a while when he was the executive petty officer at Coast Guard Station Menemsha. He also spent time at search and rescue stations including South Portland, Maine, and he ended his Coast Guard career at Governors Island in New York.

This is the audio from the live streaming podcast episode of March 26. The complete video can be seen on the USLHS YouTube channel. Joining host Jeremy D’Entremont is co-host Sarah MacHugh, along with producer Ralph Krugler.

Boston businessman Dave Waller, founder of a special effects company, bought Graves Lighthouse at auction in 2013. Graves is a 113-foot granite tower built in 1905, on a barren ledge in outer Boston Harbor. Since purchasing the property, Dave has carried out an incredible restoration. He’s also built and installed a first-order Fresnel lens made of spare parts from other lenses.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula is located within southwestern Los Angeles County, California. With increasing maritime traffic into the harbor of Los Angeles, a lighthouse was built on a high bluff in Rancho Palos Verdes in 1926. The light station buildings were built in the Spanish revival style that’s prevalent in the area. The 67-foot concrete tower originally held a third-order Fresnel lens, which is now on display at an interpretive center a short distance away. The light was automated and destaffed in the early 1970s. The lighthouse tower and other light station buildings are on an active Coast Guard station.

A new nonprofit organization, the Friends of Point Vicente Lighthouse, is working to restore and preserve the historic site. We have three guests in this episode. Catherine Sinich and Amy Forte are co-founders and board members for the Friends of Point Vicente Lighthouse. Captain Kip Louttit is retired from Coast Guard active duty but remains active in the Coast Guard Auxilary, and he has the title of Staff Officer for Navigation Systems, Point Vicente Lighthouse.

This is an edited version of an interview that was first heard in August 2021. Our guest is Meghan Agresto, manager of the Currituck Beach Light Station  in Corolla, North Carolina.

Currituck Beach Lighthouse—the northernmost of six light stations on the Outer Banks—began service on December 1, 1875.  It was the last of the tall brick lighthouses built on the Outer Banks. The 162-foot-tall tower has an unpainted red brick exterior. After automation in 1937, the site fell into disrepair until the nonprofit Outer Banks Conservationists renovated the station’s buildings and opened the site to the public in 1990.

Meghan Agresto has been the resident site manager of the Currituck Beach Light Station for more than 20 years. Meghan is the modern day lighthouse keeper, along with her partner, Luis Garcia. They raised two sons in a house on the property. When the boys were young, Corolla had no school of its own, so Meghan started a school for local children.

There’s been a lighthouse standing on Bald Head Island at the entrance to the Cape Fear River in the southeast corner of North Carolina for more than two centuries. The original lighthouse began service in 1795 and was the first lighthouse in the state. The Old Baldy Lighthouse that stands today—officially known as Bald Head Island Lighthouse—was built in 1817. The 110-foot tower is constructed of soft red bricks and covered with stucco.

Today, after taking the ferry from the mainland, visitors can climb the lighthouse for a view of Bald Head Island. Next to the lighthouse, the Smith Island Museum offers more information about the lighthouse, pirates, surfmen of the United States Lifesaving Service, and other island history. We have two guests in this episode. Travis Gilbert is a public historian and preservationist and the director of philanthropy for the Old Baldy Foundation. Logan Merchant is on the board of directors of the Old Baldy Foundation and is also an educator in the Wake County Public School System.

This episode consists of audio from the first live streaming edition of our podcast, broadcast live on YouTube on February 26, 2026. The complete video of the live stream can be seen on our YouTube channel. The guests are Colby Thomas and Billy Simmons, who are historic interpreters at Old Cape Henry Lighthouse in Virginia – the first lighthouse commissioned by the federal government.

There are two lighthouses at Cape Henry, marking the south side of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The older of the two lighthouses was built in 1792, and the sandstone tower stands 92 feet tall. The 1792 lighthouse eventually developed some cracks and a new, taller lighthouse was built in 1881. Since 1930, the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse has been owned and operated by Preservation Virginia. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964, and in 2002 the American Society of Civil Engineers designated it lighthouse a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Knotbrook Taylor is originally from England and now lives in Scotland. He has been writing poetry for more than 25 years. His first published collection of poetry, Beatitudes, was launched in 2007 by Blue Salt Publishing. In 2014 he won the Erbacce prize for his collection Ping-Pong in the Rain. Erbacce is a publisher that holds an annual worldwide poetry contest.

The Museum of Scottish Lighthouses commissioned Taylor to write a book of Scottish lighthouse poems. It was published in 2010 and he was also the poet in residence for a time at the museum.

Here is a quote from the Erbacce website about Knotbrook: “Knotbrook delights in language, it is almost as though he is in love with words and needs to both cherish and almost worship each one.”

This episode focuses on two very special experiences available to lighthouse lovers and lovers of the rocky coast of Maine. The first segment highlights an all-day “Mid-Coast & Monhegan Island 19 Lighthouse Cruise” with Bar Harbor Whale Watch this coming September 5. Interviewed in the segment are Julie Taylor, lead naturalist for Bar Harbor Whale Watch; Zack Klyver, marine mammal scientist, educator, and conservationist; and Bob Trapani Jr., executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Together with U.S. Lighthouse Society Historian Jeremy D’Entremont and photographer Mike Leonard, this team will narrate the September 5th cruise.

Next is an interview with Captain Barry King of the schooner Mary Day, which is homeported in Camden, Maine. Jeremy D’Entremont will be on board to help narrate a 6-day lighthouse cruise, July 26 to August 1. A Maine sailing legend, the Mary Day, a two-masted gaff topsail schooner, was built in 1962 by the famous Harvey Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine. Unlike earlier schooners that were built to fish or to carry cargo, Mary Day was designed and built to carry passengers.