Hidden Gems: Meet Keely McCann of Sunny’s Marina

Today we’d like to introduce you to Keely McCann.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Sunny’s Marina began as a dream that Kullen and I (Keely) had 3 Summers ago. About to graduate from college, we weren’t quite sure we wanted to follow the current career paths we were on, Kullen was selling insurance and I was working at a hospital. We both hated our jobs so we quit them and moved back to the Lake of the Ozarks. Being on boats and surrounded by water every day was the ultimate goal, so the lake made perfect sense. Kullen & I both grew up here. Spending every Summer out on boats from the time we were born until we graduated high school and left for college.

Our first Summer in business (2019), we created K & K Yacht Services. Our vision was to keep boating safe and fun. Kullen would drive people’s boats and I would be the first mate/bartender onboard. They got to have an amazing lake day while not worrying about staying sober to operate the boat, tie it up, or even make their own drinks. We took care of it all and people loved it. Entertaining locals and tourists all season long with intentions of moving to Florida in the winter to buy a boat, live on it & expand our business to Chartering down there. But, the universe had other plans for us right here at the lake. While trying to find someone to let us expand by Chartering their boat, we met an investor who wanted to buy us a boat at the lake. Finally, we wouldn’t just be captaining & crewing other people’s boats, we would be running actual charters on our Boat.

Our second Summer (2020) started off a bit terrifying with covid, we worried that no one would vacation at the lake because of it. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The Lake of the Ozarks began to blow up and so did we, adding two more Charter boats to our fleet and hiring our first employees that Summer. We were really living our dream and also living on our Boat with our golden retriever Sunny, yes the same one we were Chartering everyday. The Summer was not without its problems though, Kullen & our good friend Cody Forest were always finding things that needed to be fixed on the boat. They would spend hours down in the engine room, determined to fix whatever problem we had come across. Even if that meant being covered in sweat & grease until 3am the night before an 8am Charter. We were all determined to continue making this dream a reality, and it was about to pay off big time. We were telling a potential investor that our big dream was to turn this into a Marina someday. Our own Marina on the lake with docks full of beautiful Boats to charter, sell and the world’s first ever floating Boat Hotel. Lynn was in and our hunt for the perfect & name marina began. We decided we had to name it after Sunny, our golden retriever who had spent his whole life growing up on the boat Kullen & I (Keely) had chartered. As we found the perfect marina, formerly Yacht Haven, we grew our Sunny’s Marina team to include Cody Forest & Blake Hodits as well as Kullen Carlock & I (Keely McCann).

Kullen & I knew we needed to help develop the property which was where Cody Forest came in. Kullen, Keely & Cody had all grown up working together at Shady Gators. We had all also been building tiny houses next to each other right outside of Lake Ozark. Cody had recently been working for his mentor who develops successful lake properties such as Backwater Jacks. Cody also came with a wealth of engine & boat system knowledge which we had learned the season before was absolutely vital to running a boat business. Cody helped Kullen build the tiki bar at Sunny’s Marina as well as had the perfect dog to be a mascot for it along with Sunny. WolfGang Forest, Cody’s three years old Wolf, Husky, and Blue Heeler mix had been Sunny’s best friend forever and loved being on boats too!

Blake Hodits & Kullen had known each other from childhood, both growing up in Cross Creek in Camdenton. Kullen had always looked up to Blake as someone with a great knowledge of finance & business operations, we were all extremely excited to have him onboard our team. As well as his wife Jo Leen Hodits, who helped me (Keely) with decorating Boat Hotels, planning events, running our POS system and so much more. Blake and Jo had recently moved back to the lake with their cute dog Toshi, a mini berniedoodle. Toshi was the perfect third amigo for Sunny & Wolfie on our bar logo (photos attached)

Our third and most recent summer (2021), we opened Sunny’s Marina! Located off the Bagnell Dam Strip by car & in Jennings Branch Cove by water (0.5 mile marker, same cove as Ozark Yacht Club). Sunny’s Marina has four docks with 67 boat slips, half of which we rent out and the other half we use for our Floating Boat Hotels or our Charter & personal boats. To create our Floating Boat Hotels, we buy old boats that are going to be junked, and we completely rehab them into a beautiful new overnight experience! New insulation, drywall, flooring, plumbing, electric, everything! We have two large shops here at the Marina that we do Boat Bottom Painting, Buffing & Waxing, as well as Aqua Marine Deck (a soft, nonslip flooring for boats). Our passion truly is creating beautiful boats, whether in our boat painting shop or the rehab shop for boat hotels. In our spare time (a joke because we literally have none, lol) we built an island style bar we call, The Dinghy! With all of our pups as the logo, Sunny, Wolfie & Toshi. As the Summer begins to come to a close, we are looking forward to continuing to improve Sunny’s Marina & the various businesses we run out of here.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
One of the biggest struggles we faced was obtaining a liquor license from the City of Lake Ozark. They lost our application numerous times, told us our building was fine then decided the next week it wasn’t, just to name a few things. It was an extremely confusing process that made us feel extremely unwelcome by the city lake ozark, and we are ALL locals.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Sunny’s Marina is all about Boats, Happiness and the Lake Lifestyle! We pride ourselves in being the most dog-friendly business at the lake, we allow dogs in our boat hotels, on our Charters, at the dinghy bar, and even some of our employees bring their dogs to work with them everyday. We love it!

Boat Bottom Painting, Buff & Waxing: this is our biggest service out of the Marina. We offer these services year round in our two giant boat shops. Our Manager Darin Kronk prides himself in delivering nothing but the best to our customers. Boats leave here literally shining because of his attention to detail & quality.

Boat Hotels: We buy boats that are about to be salvaged/junked and give them a second life! Our team demo’s them down to the bones & rebuild everything inside. We then rent these boats nightly through our website & on VRBO. They range in size from 36′ to 50′ and from Carver Yachts & Chris Crafts to House Boats. They sleep anywhere from 2- 8 people, and we rent them all out together for large parties. Dogs ALWAYS welcome!

The Dinghy Bar: Opened at end of July 2021, named the Dinghy because the Dinghy is a small boat & this is a small bar. Sunny, Wolf & Toshi, the four owners dogs make up our logo for the Dingy bar. We modeled the bar after our favorite places in the British Virgin Islands & Key West. We have a small pool for Dogs & humans and we have food trucks every weekend!

Charters: We offer Charters Memorial weekend – Labor Day Weekend each year. We have various Yachts available to Charter and each Charter comes with a Captain & First Mate / Bartender so you can just sit back & enjoy your day!

Boat Slip Rentals: We offer yearly & seasonal slip rentals here at Sunny’s Marina. Covered slips with electric & water hook ups, wifi & cable on gated docks in a gated Marina.

Boat Sales: We are thrilled to be launching our boat brokerage here at Sunny’s Marina this fall/winter. We will be selling used Boats as well as our Newly remodeled Boat Hotels.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
We are pretty young for Marina owners. The youngest Marina & Bar owners at the Lake of the Ozarks actually. With Keely McCann (24), Kullen Carlock (26), Cody Forest (26), Blake Hodits (33)

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.sunnysmarina.com
• Instagram: sunnysmarina
• Facebook: sunnysmarina
• Other: 573 365 5333