1-15-07 Snorkeling at Dry Tortugas National Park

Gene and I have been to a lot of National Parks but this one was probably the most amazing. Key West Florida is the southernmost point in the continental United States. Dry Tortugas is 70 miles west of Key West. This puts it 90 miles from Cuba! It’s a tiny island that is 2/3 covered with Fort Jefferson that was built during the Civil War as a Union fort—think about that for a minute…a UNION fort in south Florida?!? It never really got used for much except to protect the Union ships that anchored around it to block supplies into the Gulf of Mexico. The most interesting thing the fort was for was when they took the conspirators that helped Booth shoot Lincoln out there. Now it’s a National Park. There is a boat that takes 100 people out there for a short trip. We decided we wanted a longer visit so we flew out in a seaplane. It was a great ride. It took about 35 minutes and we were the only ones in our little plane. The water was beautiful and he flew us over 2 ship wrecks. We were all staring down looking for sea life—but didn’t spot a thing. We all loved the ride and the best part was it got us to the island an hour and a half before the boat arrived so that we got to be the first ones to snorkel. Its about 75 degrees in southern Florida at the moment—never seems to change day or night. Must have been about that on Tortugas. The water wasn’t much colder either. We didn’t see as much while we were snorkeling as we have in Hawaii but it was still really beautiful. The coral is much different than I’ve seen before, kind of big and round instead of branches. It looked nice and soft but I didn’t touch it. The fish were gorgeous—and there were barracuda that looked pretty friendly. Hank had an underwater camera so we’ll see if he got any good pictures once he gets them developed. We all snorkeled a lot. The tour boat provides lunch on the beach, and since we were going home with them we decided that it was for us too. Good sandwiches, good tour of the fort, fun 2 hour ride home on the water. If any of you go, this is the way to do it—fly out on the first plane of the morning and take the boat back. Its more expensive this way but absolutely worth the expense.
After going in and out of the salt water several times and then air drying in the wind on the boat on the way home we looked wonderful. I just stuck my hat on top of the rats nest I call hair and we wandered around Key West some more. We finally found the main tourist square that everyone talks about and it was hopping with people. Lots of people selling jewelry and art, street performers, sunburned tourists—very good for people watching. Hank and Laura took us out to dinner (again) at Marguaritaville—Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant that is famous for “cheeseburger in paradise”. After a day in the sun the cheeseburger was WONDERFUL…Hank, Gene, and I all had one. LJ had a vegetable plate that looked delicious too. We looked at another restaurant called Sloppy Joes (evidently one of the first places to make sloppy joes and a favorite hangout of Hemmingways) but Marguaritaville was better by far. I’ll post a photo of us inside. Check my hair!
The next problem was how to get to our car which was way over at the airport (too far to walk, but not really all that far as Key West is pretty small). We put Gene in a taxi (the taxis charge by the person for some dumb reason) and he retrieved it while Hank, LJ, and I waited with the gear. We didn’t waste time waiting though—we zipped into the Raw Bar for dessert. I had Key Lime pie which is the big deal around here. LJ had molten lava cake. Hank had an oyster shooter and a beer—kind of funny because in Key West they fill the oyster shooter glass with vodka. Looked nasty but he threw it down with no trouble. Gene missed out on these extra calories and silliness, but we filled him in.