Skip to content
Keys Eco-Tours? John Pennekamp State Park

Keys Eco-Tours? See Captain Sterling – John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Looking for Keys Eco-Tours? See Captain Sterling at Everglades Eco-Tours Our first stop in the Keys this year was John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Time for another Keys Eco-Tours. This was a new stop for us and we're glad we had the opportunity to check it out. We left Boca Chita while it was still quite windy, but manageable. When we got to where the waterway narrowed down a bit, we passed under the Jew Fish Creek Inlet and Bridge, in Key Largo, Florida, and passed the Anchorage Resort and Marina. We've stayed there in 2010 when we helped the…

Read more
Pebble Isle Marina Boat Sign, Tennessee River

Pebble Isle Marina – Known For Their Southern Hospitality & Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Pebble Isle Marina owners Randy and Tami are well known for their infectious southern personalities. On our way to Pebble Isle Marina today, At MM-78.2, we passed the Louisville and Nashville RR Bridge (above). It is a non-functioning bridge at this time, probably only used for fishing now. Shortly after the bridge, we passed an abandoned, partly submerged, building (photo below). The Tennessee Valley Authority purchased many acres of land in preparation to create Kentucky Lake. The Kentucky Dam was completed in 1944, when the area was flooded and many towns below the new water level disappeared. Lake Barkley was created in the early 1960’s…

Read more
Oneota Trail Sign, Mackinac Island, Michigan

Mackinac Island – The Path Less Taken

Mackinac Island is our FAVORITE Michigan cruising destination! Mackinac Island is a very busy tourist destination during the day. So when visiting the island, Jim and I try to focus our daytime activities on walking in less congested areas. Our favorite route starts by walking up the steps leading to the steep bluff just across the road from the marina. Most day-time visitors to the island walk or ride bikes along the path at the bottom perimeter of the island. It's fairly busy there at the bottom, that's why we choose to climb to the top of the island. The view…

Read more
International Bridge

Heading Home from Spanish – North Channel, Canada

Loading Kismet at Spanish Municipal Marina. Heading back to Spanish, time to load our boat onto the trailer to drive back to the states. This was the first bad weather day of our trip. No sooner had we got the boat secured onto the trailer and into the parking lot when it started to rain hard. You can tell from the photos how dreary it was during our trip home. Heading over the bridge at Sault Saint Marie was a little stop-and-go as we neared customs. Not long after crossing the Mackinaw Bridge, we were looking for a place to…

Read more
Kismet Cruising Torch River, Michigan

Have You Ever Been to Torch River?

We launched the boat at Whitewater Township Park in Skegemog Lake and quickly pointed the boat in the direction of Torch River. Jim and I started our boating adventures in the early 90s on a 21-foot Four Winns Sundowner. On many weekends during our short Michigan summers, we'd trailer it to Torch Lake for a relaxing few days on the hook. Jim was studying for tests at the time and I'd catch up on reading, we'd fill up a cooler of mostly finger food and we'd be happy campers for a long weekend away from the rat race. This weekend we…

Read more
Kismet Cruising Canals, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Idling Up New River – Dinghy Ride – Fort Lauderdale, Florida

We ventured out on a long dinghy ride today – up the New River and into a few side channels. We were just a short distance away from the marina and it was hard to tell we were so close to such a big city as Fort Lauderdale. We must have been gone several hours as there are a lot of waterways to cover on the river with a few little offshoots to explore. As an extra bonus, we got to see all different kinds of boats – old, new, big, small, and some very unusual ones. Jim said that…

Read more
Kismet Docked on New River, Fort Lauderdale

Keeping a Promise in Fort Lauderdale

Lisa made me promise we'd stop in Fort Lauderdale for a week, so after staying in Homestead for two nights to catch up on work and other chores, here we are putting the boat in the water right at Cooley's Landing Marina (below), on the New River at the beginning of the downtown Riverwalk area. Cooley's is one of our favorite marinas in Florida. Nice facilities and location. We can walk to shop in Las Olas, eat out at a choice of restaurants, grocery shop, or get plenty of exercise walking right along the river. Lisa always raves about Cooley's…

Read more
Seven-mile Bridge, Marathon, Florida

Bridge Walk – Seven-Mile Bridge

We got up early this morning to do a four-mile walk on the Seven-Mile Bridge, two miles out and two back. It's a fun walk, we almost always see some aquatic life in the water below while walking. Today we saw several stingrays. The Seven-Mile Bridge is a famous bridge in the Florida Keys. It connects Knight's Key (part of the city of Marathon, Florida) in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys. Among the longest bridges in existence when it was built, it is one of the many bridges on US 1 in the Keys,…

Read more
Back To Top