Dry Tortugas

From Wikipedia – The islands of the Dry Tortugas, at the westernmost end of the Florida Keys, are the site of Fort Jefferson, a Civil War-era fort that is the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere. The park is home to undisturbed coral reefs and shipwrecks, and is only accessible by plane or boat.

• Established: 10/26/1992
• Annual Visitors: 56,810
• Size: 64,701 acres

Dry Tortugas – December 16, 2019
Elizabeth:
Our good friend Sherry from Phoenix, where we are from, joined Gary and I in our chase for the three Florida National Parks.

Gary and I spent 9 days renovating Gary’s step mom’s house in Edgewater, FL south of Daytona prepping it for sale. On day 6 of that reno, Gary drove to Orlando to pick Sherry up at the airport and she graciously dove into the renovations with us.
On December 15th all three of us flew to Key West to begin our adventure. We decided not to rent a car for the two days we would be in Key West as we stayed at the Margaritaville Resort right on the water and a marina at Malory Square in the historic section old section of Key West. We walked to Fogerty’s Restaurant/Flying Monkey Saloon for dinner. Our son, Cooper, had worked there at age 18 after driving from Phoenix to Key West after high school. The food is good and the wait staff and manager were friendly and interested in our previous trips as a family to Key West 20 years ago and Cooper’s adventures during his few months living, going to school and working as a barback on well-known Duval Street some 14 years ago!

The three cruise ships, docked in front of our hotel that morning, were now setting sail, so to speak, by dinnertime and the thousands of people on the streets shopping, drinking and buying Key Lime pies had dwindled. Not the worn down, small, relatively quiet but fun lovingly crazy Key West we remembered from 20 years ago. We have been to Key West a few times and Sherry once before. Gary’s and my memories are of joining Mel Fisher in his museum and he draping thousands of dollars worth of 400 year old gold chains over my neck and sharing a drink in a Key West bar later that day. Mel has since passed away. He was an internationally known Florida treasure hunter and credited with finding the Spanish Galleon: The Atocha. A random website to familiarize yourself with the incredible story of Mel finding 400 million dollars of sunken treasure for your viewing pleasure: https://www.melfisher.com/Library/AtochaMargStory.asp .
The next morning, Dec. 16th, we boarded the 8am ferry for Dry Tortugas National Park… with 150 of our closest soon to be friends. The two and a half hour, 30 MPH ride was relatively comfortable as they had two air-conditioned locations and outside seating as well and areas around the boat to stand and look for sea life. I saw a sea turtle and what I am very sure was a breaching dolphin or small whale in the distance. The staff was organized in the terminal which we walked to (about ¾ mile from our hotel); the tour guide, David, his cousin Justin (ironically his family lived in Show Low, AZ) and all the other crew members were friendly, hardworking, safety conscious, educational and did a good job with the onboard breakfast during our journey. They also provided us with lunch while at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park and had a ‘for purchase’ menu and alcohol on the return trip. They strongly suggest you bring a refillable water bottle. They provide cold fresh water for the day as the island has no fresh water.

You can “rent” snorkel gear for free from The Yankee Freedom ferry boat and the boat has 4 “heads” (bathrooms) and is accessible throughout the 3 ½ hours you have to explore while on the island. There is a NP Visitor’s Center and gift shop inside the fort where we purchased a DTNP lapel pin, two postcards and got our NP book stamped. We have a United States poster at home that we had mounted on a foam board and framed, without glass. We will be adding each Park’s pin to the poster at the preprinted NP locations in each state. There are 61 NP right now although we have gotten wind that President Trump is looking to designate a 62nd soon!

We were able to read about the history of the Fort/prison/NP on placards throughout the Fort; walk out the “new” sandbar beach that has been formed since our last trip out there 20 years before; enjoy the picnic tables, snorkeling sights, the moat, 1850’s cannons, and various buildings that have been refurbished. We enjoy geocaching and Gary had downloaded the Earth caches when we had cell and internet service. There is neither on Dry Tortugas. We saw the largest selection of naturally washed up conch shells we have ever seen. We took the tour guide’s advise and took home the best souvenirs there is to take…a picture! You can not remove anything from the National Parks. We were glad, because they were there for us to visually enjoy.

Upon our return to Key West at about 5:15pm, we walked up to the cemetery. Most gravesites are above ground in coral and shell mortared concrete. You see, most of Key West sits 2 feet above sea level but the cemetery sits at the highpoint of town…14 feet above sea level! The graves sites are from the early 1800’s through today.

We enjoyed another great meal, this time at Caroline’s also on Duval Street. Malory Square’s entertainment was finished by the time we returned to the Margaritaville Resort. You can find magicians, cat trainers, acrobats and fire jugglers each night from about 5pm to 6:30pm…ish. All times are on “Island Time” and patience is necessary. The Frenchman that has been doing a cat show there for well over 25 years will tell you, “Hurry up, take your time” and “I start at 5pm, don’t be late, because I’m never on time”.
Tomorrow we will rent a car from the airport, drive up the Key’s, and head to our next adventure, Biscayne National Park!