Block Island off Rhode Island

31 July 2015 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Old Harbor © Swampyank/cc-by-sa-3.0

Old Harbor © Swampyank/cc-by-sa-3.0

Block Island is part of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean about 13 miles (21 km) south of the coast of Rhode Island, 14 miles (23 km) east of Montauk Point on Long Island, and is separated from the Rhode Island mainland by Block Island Sound. The island is part of the Outer Lands region, a coastal archipelago. The Nature Conservancy added Block Island to its list of “The Last Great Places”; the list consists of twelve sites in the Western Hemisphere. About 40 percent of the island is set aside for conservation.   read more…

Newport in Rhode Island

21 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Newport Sailing 2009 © chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-3.0

Newport Sailing 2009 © chensiyuan/cc-by-sa-3.0

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County. It is located 23 miles (37 km) south of Providence, and 61 miles (98 km) south of Boston. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and a major United States Navy training center. A major 18th century port city, Newport now contains among the highest number of surviving colonial buildings of any city in the United States. The city is the county seat of Newport County (a county that no longer has any governmental functions other than court administrative and sheriff corrections boundaries). Newport was known for being the city of some of the Summer White Houses during the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.   read more…

Cape Cod on the Atlantic

5 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Cape Cod © DidiCast/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cape Cod © DidiCast/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cape Cod is a cape jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal was cut through the base or isthmus of the peninsula, turning nearly all of Cape Cod into what would technically be described as an island, though this term is not common in everyday speech.   read more…

The sail training ship USCGC Eagle

1 May 2013 | Author/Destination: | Category: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  3 minutes

© USCG - Brown, Telfair H. PA1

© USCG – Brown, Telfair H. PA1

The USCGC Eagle is a 295-foot (90 m) barque used as a training cutter for future officers of the United States Coast Guard. She is the only active commissioned sailing vessel in American military service. She is the seventh U.S. Navy or Coast Guard ship to bear the name in a line dating back to 1792. Each summer, Eagle conducts cruises with cadets from her homeport at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London (Connecticut) and candidates from the Officer Candidate School for periods ranging from a week to two months. These cruises fulfill multiple roles; the primary mission is training the cadets and officer candidates, but the ship also performs a public relations role. Often, Eagle makes calls at foreign ports as a goodwill ambassador.   read more…

Boston, the birthplace of America

13 March 2013 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Downtown Skyline © Nelson48

Downtown Skyline © Nelson48

Boston is the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its largest city, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It was named Boston by early settlers from Boston, Lincolnshire in England. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial “Capital of New England” for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper, covering 48.43 square miles (125.43 square km), had an estimated population of 625,087 in 2011 according to the U.S. Census, making it the 21st largest in the country. Boston is also the county seat of Suffolk County and anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region is home to 7.6 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.   read more…

The museum ship USS Constitution

1 February 2013 | Author/Destination: | Category: Tall ships, Museums, Exhibitions, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  9 minutes

USS Constitution sails into Boston Harbor during an underway Battle of Midway commemoration © U.S. Navy - Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kathryn E. Macdonald

USS Constitution sails into Boston Harbor during an underway Battle of Midway commemoration
© U.S. Navy – Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kathryn E. Macdonald

USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world’s oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat. Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy’s capital ships, and so Constitution and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. Built in Boston, Massachusetts, at Edmund Hartt‘s shipyard, her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.   read more…

Overview Theme Weeks

27 December 2011 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  21 minutes

Theme Weeks (Latest addition: February 2026) In irregular intervals we publish Theme Weeks about cities, regions, and countries. Here you can find the complete list.   read more…

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