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Adventures in the Florida Keys, Sea Kayaking with Big Pine Kayak Adventures

The Florida Keys are basically small spits of land connected by bridges on the Overseas Highway. Surrounding you is the water of ocean and bay, but it’s hard to get too far off the beaten track on land. No Name Key off of Big Pine Key is arguably the most remote section of the Upper Keys. The best to way to see the island is from the seat of a sea kayak with Bill Keogh as your guide. For 18 years, Keogh, owner of Big Pine Kayak Adventures, has led paddlers across the channel and into the mangroves of No Name Key. Within moments of my stepmom, Ginny, and I paddling on the calm waters, we would spot the swift frigate birds, tricolored and green herons, and kingfishers. Then we were following Bill and his dog Scudder through a narrow tunnel of mangroves, pulling roots to move us forward. We would soon reach a large salt pond where we would spot numerous upside-down jellyfish in the clear waters. It was just us and the great white egrets in this serene locale. After breathing in our fair share of salty air, we would go back through the sinuous waterway in the mangroves, flowing with the current, and wishing it would never end. 

 

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Amman Imman: Water is Life

Today, I’m pleased to introduce my first guest blogger on ActiveTravels, my brother Jim Jermanok. I hope it will be the first of many guest writers!

Five years ago, following graduation from Yale, Ariane Kirtley went to West Africa as a Fulbright Scholar. Her career seemed assured. Almost overnight her life changed. Friends encouraged her to visit the Florida-sized Azawak Valley, the most abandoned region of Niger, the poorest country on Earth. In the Azawak, half the children die before reaching five years old, often of thirst. Ariane thought she’d seen everything in Africa, but she was so devastated by the conditions she found that she decided to dedicate her life to the people of the Azawak, and bring them water from unlimited supplies 600-1000 feet underground, much too deep for conventional wells to reach.
 
Since 2006, Ariane has worked against harrowing odds to save lives in the Azawak, among some of the most defenseless minorities in Africa – a half million Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads who have no water most of the year due to unremitting drought. Ariane set aside career goals and founded her own organization, Amman Imman: Water Is Life, to build permanent borehole wells for these nomads. Working far from civilization in suffocating Saharan heat, facing persistent health risks, Ariane and her team do major infrastructure work normally carried out by governments. In early 2010, persevering under the threat of Al-Qaida terrorists, she finished building her second borehole, the Kijigari “Well of Love.” This follows completion of Tangarwashane borehole in 2007-08. Each borehole serves 25,000 people and animals. 
 
Ariane’s dream is to build fifty such “Oases of Life” to eliminate water scarcity for the half million forsaken people of the Azawak. During this Holiday Season, please think about helping this brave woman save the lives of children and nomads who are on the brink, by donating generously to her 501c3 organization, Amman Imman: Water Is Life. 
 

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Lovely Linekin Bay

I’ve been writing about New England since 1994, even authoring a book titled New England Seacoast Adventures, so it’s rare when I find out about a classic resort on the New England coast I’ve never visited. But that was exactly the case this past weekend when I brought my family to Linekin Bay Resort on the Maine coast. Linekin Bay might be a five-minute drive from the tourist hub of Boothbay Harbor, but once you arrive, it feels a world away. A former girls camp when it opened over a century ago, you spend the night in lodges with grand stone chimneys and cabins perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean water. In the morning, you wake up to lobster boats pulling up their traps and then wander over to the main lodge for a breakfast of wild blueberry crepes, French toast topped with strawberries, eggs benedict, and hot-out-of-the-oven scones. All meals are included in the price, including the Tuesday lobster bake that’s held on the outdoor deck with live music. Other nights, the food is surprisingly good and includes swordfish, hangar steak, and roasted chicken. 

 
The main draw of Linekin Bay is its fleet of Rhodes 19 sailboats. With a southerly wind averaging ten knots, this bay was meant for sailing. I went out with one of the instructors and cruised around Cabbage Island, peering at seals lounging on rocks and osprey flying overhead. As we tacked towards the mouth of the bay, you could see the Burnt Island lighthouse and a three-masted schooner sailing along the horizon. Another morning, I went sea kayaking with the family and did the loop around the island. The resort will also offer stand-up paddleboarding this summer. And don’t miss the opportunity to walk with Rupert, a man who’s dedicated most of his life to land conservation in the region and is more than happy to show you his favorite routes. If you want to drop out of the rat race and spend much-needed quality time with loved ones, this is the place. The reason why families return summer after summer. 
 
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The Much-Needed Therapeutic Waters of Temagami

As soon as I laid eyes on the waters of Lake Temagami, all I wanted to do was jump in and swim. And for 3 days, that’s primarily what I did. Dove in the heavenly waters of this vast lake and swam free crawl, backstroke, elementary backstroke, underwater, to a small island directly across from us, where our friend Bruce had his cabin (I’ll talk more about him tomorrow). It was a perfect cleansing of my body in these pristine waters, happily washing away the year’s stress with each stroke. 

I had no idea where we were, a place called Ojibway on an island 20 minutes by boat from the parking lot some 5 to 6 hours drive north of Toronto. Amy had found the place because her daughter, Sophie, was a counselor at Keewaydin Songadeewin summer camp in Vermont, sister camp to Keewaydin Temagami located on the same island as Ojibway. There were no campers during our stay, because the Temagami camp is primarily used as a base for long-distance canoe trips for paddlers, upwards of 6 weeks in summer. Ojibway felt like summer camp for adults in one of the most serene settings I’ve visited in Canada. The inviting waters entice you to grab a canoe and paddle to your heart’s content, following the loons. Meals are served family-style on the long tables and the food was surprisingly good. So was the company, many of whom had a long history with this island, including a woman from Mississippi, who told me that her grandfather had found this place in the early 1900s, not wanting to deal with the crowds in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Her family has been returning here for over a century. And who can blame them! 
 
It’s hard to find a more peaceful and stress-free setting, one where your WiFi only works close to the dining area (and very slow at that). You’re free to discard the smart phone and read your stack of books, go for a paddle, have gin and tonics on the deck, and yes, swim. I want to hold on to that image of me diving off the dock at Ojibway to hopefully keep my blood pressure down the rest of the year. At least, until I return to this special spot and dive in again. 
 
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Maine Week-AMC’s Gorman Chairback Lodge Worth the Drive

After driving 45 minutes on rutted timber roads on the outskirts of Greenville, Maine, I was definitely tired of driving by the time I reached Gorman Chairback Lodge. Smack dab in the heart of Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness in the North Woods, this last great stand of wilderness in northeastern United States is not easily accessible. Then we walked into the main lodge and saw the long tables made of fresh white pine and met the friendly crew staff. They took us to our cabin perched on Long Pond, a serene almost 4-mile-long body of water surrounded by the ridges of the nearby Appalachian Trail. That’s when we heard the first of many loon calls, that unmistakable yodel echoing across the lake. All was bliss from this point onward. Smelling the sweet pine, listening to the call of loons, peering at mountains with few, if any signs of civilization. It’s no surprise that this locale has been hosting guests since 1867. The AMC has done a fine job of refurbishing and building new cabins and most of the people we met at dinner, have been returning year after year. Once you get a taste of this pristine beauty, it’s hard not to return. 
 
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Bird Watching in Costa Rica

Just as divers think of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as that ultimate diving locale, bird watchers flock to Costa Rica. In a small country the size of West Virginia, you can find more than 850 species of birdlife. Take the entire United States and combine it with Canada and you won’t come up with that many birds. And we’re not talking ordinary birds in Costa Rica like the backyard sparrow, but spectacular toucans, scarlet macaws, quetzals, 50 types of hummingbirds, and tall storks. The great multitude of birdlife in Costa Rica stems from its diverse terrain sandwiched into a sliver of Central American terrain. Within a relatively short driving distance, you can be atop 12,000 foot peaks or down at sea level on the Pacific coast, immersed in the dense rainforest or slicing through the hazy cloud forest. Sendero Tranquillo in the Cloud Forest, La Selva Biological Station, and Carara National Park are great places to start.
 

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Keep Up the Speed

This seems rather intuitive but researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have found a correlation between walking at a brisk pace and living longer. Studying data from nine studies involving some 35,000 people, they found that only 35 percent of the slowest walking 75 year-old women made it to their 85th birthday. Males did even worse, with only 19 percent of slowest walking men reaching 85.  Bottom line: try your best to maintain a good brisk pace throughout life.
 

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