On my journey to reach all of the Florida lighthouses I finally made my way out to anclote key state park. You do have to travel by boat to get there, but some people do kayak out to the island. The lighthouse is on one end of the island and on the other end is some great shelling beach but the island is pretty long so we did not make it over to the shelling part of the island. We were so lucky with the flat water that day it was absolutely gorgeous on the water. The lighthouse itself is only open 1 weekend a month from I think September to May and then is closed for the summer because it gets way too hot to climb inside a metal tube haha.