Blogs from Dry Tortugas National Park, Keys, Florida, United States, North America

Advertisement


Day 2--Kit Ship Log--Weather: Partly Cloudy High around 70, Wind and Seas to get High-Sick Bay Report: Dan Still Has Cold, Bob' s Shoulder still Unusable. As explanation for those who don't know, my right shoulder is screwed up from a snowmobile accident in which I hit a large deer a couple weeks ago. It was better a few days ago, but for some reason, the pain flared up again. After a breakfast of huevos rancheros, we received our weather briefing from Capt. Steve. The forecast was for increasing winds from the north and seas of 3 feet in the afternoon. If we were to go to the Dry Tortugas, we would be returning the following day and that forecast was for even rougher seas. So after some discussion, we decided we would sail back to ... read more
Leaving the Marquesas
Crew Getting Ready to Help Deploy the Sails
Captain and Crew Raising the Sails


Today was the highlight of our whole trip - the one thing I scheduled to do. Visit Dry Tortugas National Park. It is located 70 miles out to sea and is probably the most remote national park in the NP System. It is only accessible by charter boat, sea plane, or the national park ferry. We opted for the ferry. It is the most popular option and the least expensive, but all options are very expensive. We had to be at the boat ramp by 7am so it was an early wake up time. We also had to check out of the hotel, so we packed everything up, loaded the car and headed to the marina. We checked in, retrieved our passes and listened to the instructions from the crew. They also had Dramamine for sale, ... read more
Fort Jefferson
Inside Fort Jefferson
Fort Jefferson with Moat


Here are the underwater pictures from Kerry, Sara and Trevor snorkeling in the Dry Tortugas around Ft. Jefferson. I've also added a picture of Sara and Trevor with a mullet that jumped into their dinghy in the harbor the other day.... read more
Dry Tortugas
Baracuda and shiners again
Pilings at old coal dock


Wednesday morning we were up at 4:00 AM. After a quick cup of coffee, we loaded our stuff into the dinghy to head for shore and the bus stop on US 1. We were halfway to the marina when the outboard quit and wouldn’t restart. Kerry had to row the rest of the way to the dinghy dock, not the way we hoped to start our adventure. Luckily, we had left a little early and were able to make our 5:30 bus with time to spare. The bus ride to Key West was uneventful and mostly in the dark. Not too many people riding the bus that early, so we were even a little early arriving at Publix in Key West. We caught our connecting bus and arrived at the harbor in time to check in. ... read more
Pelican
beautiful waters
Yellowfin Tuna


(Panorama above is the view of the outer walls of Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park) Shreya and I visited South Florida for 4 days during July 4th weekend. Summer is not the right season to visit Southern Florida. It is the wet season with some occurrences of hurricanes. But, the bright side is the benefits of the “off-season”. That is, relatively less rush, cheaper hotels, etc. Key West is the southernmost city of Continental United States. It is 4 hours South West of Miami, accessible by the Overseas Highway (US Route 1). This scenic highway consists of 42 bridges connecting number of islands to the mainland USA. Key West holds a lot of historic significance. This city was a Spanish colony until Great Britain took over Florida in 1763. In 1982, Key West declared its ... read more
Passage way
Parade Ground
White Beach


I took a short trip to south Florida over the thanksgiving weekend. It is usually a 4 days holiday in most offices in US. And it is a busy travel time in the airports and on the roads. It was a last moment decision to go that far. I mean, from DC to Key West, in a car guzzling the over $3 per gallon gas for a round trip of over 2800 miles! Flight tickets become a little costly just before the holidays and sometimes it is difficult to find agreeable flight times. Driving through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, I finally reached my motel in Palm Bay. Next day I started early for Key West, which was about 6 hrs drive from Palm Bay. I had a seaplane flight scheduled for 12pm. On the way, a ... read more
Along Route 1 in the Keys
Ship wreck 1
Turquoise water


” The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysteries. It is the source of all true art and science“ A. Einstein … Web Places; if you run your mouse over these and click on the name you can learn more about the place we visit. Key West Dry Tortugas Fort Jefferson National Park January 28, Friday We were up early enough to watch the sunrise. On this little island we didn’t have to move very far. After breakfast we went kite flying. The wind was just perfect. Bob has a “stunt” kite with two cords controlling the kite, mine was much simpler but lots of fun. By 10:30 the boats began to arrive with lots of those tourists disturbing our peace?! We managed to catch up with the tour this time and had a ... read more
Mudd’s cell
Kite/Moon and Kelly
Joe and Bob scuba divers


" The purpose of life is not to be happy ~ but to matter, to be productive, to be Useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all." ~ Leo Rosten” Web sites You can move your mouse over the name and click on the name and it will send you to a web site that will tell you about that place. Dry Tortugas Since it was necessary to be at the dock with our gear to be stored by 6:30AM, so we were up and moving by 5AM. The ferryboat is the Yankee Freedom II, it is a catamaran and it travels from Key West 70 miles to the island of the Dry Tortugas once a day. It is a two and a half hour trip. We settled ourselves at ... read more
Kelly and Bob at the ferry
Kelly and Sign
Ft. Jefferson




Tot: 0.124s; Tpl: 0.006s; cc: 13; qc: 64; dbt: 0.0572s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb