Ready for crystal-clear water, white sandy beaches, and vibrantly colored tropical fish? How about a dose of history, complete with prison cells, an historic fort, and stories from one of our most iconic writers? Maybe you’d like to snorkel a coral reef or see hundreds of species of birds all in one place. Well, then, it’s probably time for a day trip out to Dry Tortugas National Park on the Yankee Freedom III.

Dreaming of visiting Dry Tortugas National Park off the Florida Keys is one thing, getting there is another. That's where the Yankee Freedom III comes in.

We're starting to see a lot of "100" themed activities across the National Park System this year in honor of the National Park Service's Centennial, and Florida's offering invites you to paddle 100 miles in the state's 11 national parks.

Over the last decade, the explosion of books related to birding has seen the formation of a subgenre focused on the GISS concept. GISS (typically pronounced jizz) is an acronym for General Impression, Size, and Shape. This refers to the method of identifying a bird by visible features other than the color and markings. It’s how most seasoned birders make split-second identifications in the field. Over time, GISS has come to be a catch-all term for the holistic approach to bird identification where distribution, time of year, habitat, and behavioral considerations blend with size and shape (and good old fashioned field marks!) to make a bird knowable in an instant.