May 6, 2015 - 6:00pm
America's smallest state -- one Nevada county is nearly eight times larger -- has the longest name: In a 2010 referendum, voters kept the official title, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.The state also has a dark-horse presidential candidate who is the only Democratic candidate so far who can shoe a horse. "Put a blacksmith in the White House" could be Lincoln Chafee's slogan.
I started diving in 1956, in the lakes and rivers of Southern Ontario. My first saltwater dive was in the Florida Keys in 1960. I had never seen a reef before, and was awestruck by the profusion of fish in the endless expanses of Acropora. It was breathtakingly beautiful.