Just a few days before our week-long visit at the Harbour Cay Club in Marathon came to an end, Mike and Jess (below-middle), on Illusions (shown above) and Rich and Cheryll (below-right), on Roam (both couples own Ranger Tugs) joined us and before we knew it, we were having a mini Ranger Tug…

CHEERS… Here’s to Here & Here’s to There. Whenever we meet up with boaters from our homeport of Charlevoix, Michigan, we have a special toast, and it’s always the same. The HERE is always where we currently are and the THERE is always where we love to be and it’s always the same… Charlevoix. We’ve…

Two days after the Ranger Tug 2012 Southern Rendezvous planned festivities there are still five Ranger Tugs at dock, including: Roam, Kismet, Illusions, Gipetto and Caroline Ann, most staying for the week. This really give us an opportunity to spend some quality time, as a smaller group, with those still…

The Historic Village of Boca Grande, on the island of Gasparilla, is located at the southern tip of the Cape Haze Peninsula on Florida’s Southwest Coast midway between Sarasota and Ft. Myers. Nature has blessed this lush barrier island with seven miles of powdery white beaches stretching the entire Gulf…

Just south of Englewood, on Lemon Bay, is a great spot to anchor in Port Charlotte Beach State Park. We had a fun dinghy ride around the island and to the beach. We stayed two nights here to catch up on some business and boat chores.    

When we’ve been anchoring out a lot we look forward to getting into a big city marina and we can’t think of a better place along this beautiful Gulf Coast than Sarasota. It has everything here to satisfy a cruising boater. Nice marina facilities (Marina Jack), restaurants right on the…

De Soto Point Anchorage on the Manatee River A quiet night and calm waters greeted us at DeSoto Point on the Manatee River (above and below). A few other boats were already anchored for the night when we arrived late afternoon. It was late so we stayed on the boat,…

On our way to Gulfport today. Great cruising weather, calm as could be, not too many boat wakes to contend with and we were happy about that. We’ve heard lots of good reports from other boaters about this little community near St. Petersburg. We made arrangements to stay one-night at the…

Before leaving Tarpon Springs we needed to top off the fuel tank, we found the F & Y fuel dock close to the Sponge Docks and we were surprised at all the help we got. Captain Gregg and his little dog Monster greeted us along with the fuel guy and…

The last three times we were in Tarpon Springs by boat, we stayed at the Municipal Marina by the sponge docks. We always enjoyed the stay for it’s proximity to the great restaurants and it’s also a good spot to hear the Greek music and smell the great aromas wafting…

RV Park Palace more than met our expectations for a safe and reliable place to store our Ranger Tug, Kismet, for a few months. Tim took care of everything we needed to have done to the boat – it was freshly washed, tires checked for us and after a few…

It was a fun trip but sometimes good things must come to a… temporary halt (I was about to say END but heaven forbid that our boating lifestyle would end when it just seems to have started). Before we headed out west we had made arrangements with the RV Park…

As “Loopers,” we were excited to be able to tow our boat from Lake Powell to Rogersville, Alabama for the AGLCA (America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association) 2011 Fall Rendezvous. Little did we know that, not only would we make new friends, we’d run into a few Loopers that we did…

We spent our last night in Lake Powell anchored in Padre Bay, the same area we anchored our first night out. This time we found a little cove that was quite a bit more protected just over the hill from our first anchorage site. With a very clean, sandy beach…

We found Dungeon Canyon to be quite impressive. It’s another wide open area with lots of sites to beach anchor, plenty of space between boats for added privacy. As the day progressed, we enjoyed watching the way the light changed on the different rock faces surrounding us as the sun…

Sorry, just had to post these photos. As an artist and photographer I was completely mesmerized by the organic art ready to be found in the rock formations in Lake Powell. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.  

We would have loved to beach anchor in Davis Gulch today after our tour of it, but the only available site was already taken, so back to Oak Bay for us tonight. As we mentioned before this is a popular spot and even though it is off season there were…