2023 South: Dry Tortugas Part II

 2 December 2023

Anchored at Dry Tortugas, FL

About 70 miles from here to Key West

We had some time to kill this morning before heading over to Fort Jefferson. As we hung out on the boat getting ready for the day, we saw one of the seaplanes come in for a landing.

Clark took a video of the seaplane coming in.

Anchored

We knew the ferry would arrive shortly after 10:00, so we wanted to get over there before the crowd came in. The place where we hoped to tie up was occupied by a boat that looked like he intended to stay for the long haul, so we had to find an alternative solution. Fortunately, we had thought ahead for this possibility. 

Plan B was to drop me off at the beach and then Clark would take the dinghy to tie up somewhere out of the way. The place he figured he could tie up out of the way yielded no way for me to climb ashore. I don't have the agility Clark does. The step up to the deck from the dinghy was at least three feet high with nothing to step on for a boost.

Clark tied dinghy here and climbed up

I brought my dive boots and a towel along just for this scenario. While I struggled to change quickly from sneakers to boots, Clark struggled to keep the boat from beaching itself. It was a tad stressful to say the least. Finally, I was able to climb over the side of the dinghy and drop into water about 6 inches deep. We have a heavy dinghy, and if it beached itself, we'd never be able to get it off without getting a tow.

Even though the ferry had not yet arrived, folks were milling about. People are allowed to camp here overnight, and some of them came in on the seaplane. The fort tour started at 11:00, so we had time to kill while we waited for that to begin.

The frigates were still overhead.

We crossed the moat to take a peek inside the fort while we waited for the lecture to start. Later, we learned from the guide during her talk that the moat was the fort's sewer in the old days. She recommended against swimming in it.

A nice stranger took our picture for us

The tour started at the fort sign out front with a greeting from the guide, Asa, and a bit of history and safety information. Then she brought us to a seating area where she could give us more detailed information on the fort before starting the walking tour.

Hot day and glad of the shaded seating area

Animated Asa had a lot to say and papers to
keep her from forgetting the details

In its "hay day" c. 1863 the Fort was a city of about 400 people. 

Tortuga means turtle and this area, abounding with sea turtles, was named accordingly. The "Dry" part of the name comes in to play because there is no fresh water on this land. When the fort was built, a system of cisterns was incorporated to capture drinking water. Unfortunately, rain here is minimal and certainly not sufficient to serve 400 residents. 

Cistern system at Dry Tortugas

As we walked around the fort, Clark and I both took loads of pictures. The fort has three levels, so there was a lot to see.

We learned that the soldiers here heated the cannonballs by putting them on a chute that ran through a brick building. They lifted the hot balls with tongs to load and shoot at the enemy.

Cannon balls inserted here

Came out red hot here

We saw where they kept their munitions and how they kept from blowing themselves up.

On the second level we got to see why the soldiers preferred to sleep here instead of in their barracks - nice breeze! 

The grass-covered section in the middle
was at one time the barracks.

The only surviving living quarters inside the fort was the place where the fort engineers slept. The park rangers now use this as their headquarters.

Wonder why the engineers' living quarters is the
only one still standing!

The views of the blue / green water from up here was fantastic.

The walkway used to go all the way around the fort. In 2017 Hurricane Irma did a number on the fort, and some sections of bricks fell into the water. Time has also taken a toll on the fort. The policy here appears to be let nature take its course. They do not repair sections as they deteriorate. In many places we saw where they just piled up the bricks against a wall to show they had fallen.

The moat

Part of the tour included seeing a boat that recently landed  here from Cuba containing 40 refugees. Asa explained that these people see the fort, and this boat, as their "Statue of Liberty". It signifies that they made it to the USA.

Looks a tad small to hold 40 people
crossing an ocean

Oversized row boat with an engine

Approximately 16 millions bricks were shipped into the Dry Tortugas to build this fort. The architecture was amazing.

Air vent in the ceiling

There were strange mounds on the floor that presented interesting tripping hazards. 

After looking at it for a while, I realized it was forming from stuff dripping from above. 

A few sections were closed due to being hazardous. We saw several signs that warned of falling bricks.

Next we went up to the third level with a warning that there are no guardrails preventing a fall to the ground below. The steps that we took up were precisely made of slate in Vermont and transported here to form staircases. Built in a triangular type shape with the narrow point to the right when going up, they were designed for protection against swordsmen when under attack. The assumption being that those coming down would have the advantage over those coming up with the wide portion of the step and their back to the wall. This theory works well unless you are left-handed.

We got a closeup view of the cannon on display here. Someone peeked inside and was disappointed to see it was plugged.

The picture below shows the folks from our tour milling about. Notice the brick edge on the right - a three story drop down if you step wrong!

Loggerhead Key / Lighthouse
3 miles out

The guide told us that their big cannon could shoot a 40 pound cannon ball 3 miles out. She told us a story. 

During the Civil War, the Yankees were stationed here. A schooner from rebel Florida came in. The officer in charge of the fort met with him under a flag of truce. He told the captain that he wanted him to take a message back to Florida. He said, "If any of your rebel boats come within 3 miles of here, we will shoot them out of the water!" He then sent the schooner on his way. The bluff worked. The cannons were not operational at the time, but the schooner captain did not know that. Neither he nor his rebel friends came back.

When the tour was finished, we stepped into the gift shop to look around and soak up some air conditioning!

The below is a picture of a glass display case showing the newly hatched turtles making their way from their nests to the sea.

Frigate Bird male strutting his stuff

They had some interesting artifacts on display.  Besides the ones shown below, they had drawers showing bits and pieces of plates, pottery, and such left by the residents that lived here in the 1860s.

We met and talked to some interesting people while at the fort.  When we were on the tour, one of the park rangers walked with us. As I wiped perspiration from my brow, I asked him about folks coming here in the summer. "Oh yes, they come year round." I asked him how he / they survived the heat. He said, "I love it. I'm only happy when I'm sweating!"

The same ranger had a talk with Clark about the ferry boat and fish traps. The ranger rides the ferry in and out of the park each day. He told Clark it depended on the captain as to whether they avoided them or ignored them. Since it is his job to clean the bottom if they grab a trap, he had a story to tell us. He said a captain recently snagged a pot with polypropylene line that melted to the shaft. 

The ferry got into port around 5:00. He went diving to clean up the mess and came up 90 minutes later shivering in the pitch dark. He had no head light and needed both hands to do the work, so he had been working by feel in the dark. He said he had recently placed an order for an underwater headlamp.

Our tour of the fort lasted about 90 minutes. It started at 11:00 and by the time we were done it was time to think about lunch. Folks coming in by ferry get lunch on board. We brought our own picnic. I went to get the food I had left at a picnic bench and met a lovely lady from Iowa. 

We talked for quite some time about her travels to get to the fort. She had come with her sister and husband on one of the two seaplanes. I asked her about cost, and she said she thought it cost about $300 per person to fly in. They flew down from Iowa to Key West for the weekend only. She was excited to see the Key West Christmas parade planned for this evening.

I asked her how they got off the plane without getting their feet wet, and she told me they pulled the plane right up onto the beach. Easy as pie!

Meanwhile, I kept looking at Clark wondering when he would join me for food. He was busy talking (imagine that) to one of the other park rangers. I thought they would never stop talking. Clark was getting all sorts of good information from him about Loggerhead Key where he (Clark) planned to take us later this afternoon.

He finally stopped talking and sat down to eat. Shortly after that we went to find the dinghy. Even though I could not climb up from the dinghy, he believed I could climb down. I decided to give it a try and found that I could get down if I sat down first and landed on my tippy toes. The leap to the dinghy from the cement platform it was tied to was a more challenging than the drop down to the cement platform from the dock. The good news is we survived to tell the story!

As we pulled away from the dock, we went past the ferry. Clark noted that we could probably take our dinghy through the middle of the ferry. Since water was pouring out under the boat probably from the bilge or air conditioning on board, I suggested we not try that today. Clark said the water came from the diesel generator. 

By now it was mid afternoon. Back on Sunset Delight, I was ready for a nap. However, Clark informed me that our next activity was to go to Loggerhead Key by dinghy to go snorkeling. We changed to swimsuits and were on our way.  The lighthouse was 3 miles from the boat, so we had a bit of a ride to get there.

For the most part, I was too busy holding on and bouncing around in the dingy to take pictures of the ride out.  We headed towards the dilapidated building to get to the designated swimming area. It was a long hot walk through the "shifting-beneath-our-feet" sand to get there.  Access to the lighthouse was prohibited, but we could see it clearly from the beach.

Snorkeling at the swim area was a mistake as it was low tide and nearly impossible to get out deep enough to see anything interesting due to the coral wall in the way. We brought my underwater camera, but did not see anything noteworthy while snorkeling.

I did get to swim with a school of fish for a while so that was cool. It was a long, hot walk through sand to get to and from the swimming area. I was pooped by the time we got back to Sunset Delight, and we still had to pull the dinghy up and stow everything for the night ready to depart in the morning.

As with the night before, the fishing boats came in to anchor and surrounded us. The park ranger had told Clark that they come every night, mostly Cubans, and have their spots picked out where they want to drop anchor.  We wondered if we were occupying anyone's favorite spot.

Again, same as last night, that one boat came flying in shortly after sunset to drop his anchor. We knew he had arrived as we rocked from his wake.

Fishing boat anchored at sunset

We sat on the back of the boat to watch the sky change colors. We agreed that relaxing while watching the sun set was the best part of the day.