Southern U.S. Day 9

---

Day 9 May 12, 2013

Got up early because we had to be at the boat by 7 am. We had a little trouble finding the boat, but we got there in plenty of time. The weather was perfect – sunny, low 80’s, not much humidity, and mostly calm seas. The ride out was two and one-half hours. The boat was very comfortable and relatively new – only seven months old.

They provided breakfast - hard boiled eggs ham, bagels, cereal, etc. not great but certainly good enough. The crew members were very friendly and helpful. They all seemed to enjoy what they were doing. During the ride they provided some history and described the islands we rode past. That’s when we learned that it is called the Dry Tortugas because there is no fresh water on the island and ship’s captains would know that when they saw the name on their map.

The first thing I did when we arrived was to9 get four ore stamps, bringing my total to 62 stamps from 39 parks in 17 states.

When we got to the island we chose to take a guided tour of the fort, which was given by two crew members, not national park staff. The tour was about an hour and very informative and interesting. The tour guides enthusiasm was contagious.

Fort Jefferson is the third largest masonry fort in the United States. The military decided they needed aq fort here to protect shipping to and from the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, to provide a safe haven for our navy vessels and most importantly, to prevent our enemies from occupying the island.

In typical government fashion the project was ill-conceived from the start. The first six engineers they hired to design the fort came out to the island and said you would have to be crazy to build a masonry fort there. The seventh engineer said it could be done. Remember – this is an island that is 70 miles from Key West – before Kew west was connected to the mainland, and had no water. The shipped engineers, workers and military personnel to the island and began construction. The first thing they built were cisterns to collect rain water for drinking.

The walls were designed to be massive – at least 8 feet thick and three stories high. Before the fort was completed the civil war broke out, which meant that supplies were that much harder to get. As they were finished the second story and began the third a funny thing happened – it began to sink under its own weight. They immediately halted construction, but not soon enough to prevent the cisterns located under the fort from cracking, allowing salt water to infiltrate their drinking water, making it non potable.

The fort was turned into a prisoner camp, but not for Confederate soldiers. It primarily housed Union deserters. The most famous prisoner was Dr. Mudd the Dr. who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg after he shot President Lincoln. He was pardoned by President Jackson, before his sentence was completed, partly because he should have been tried by in civilian courts and not the military tribunals.

The fort was never finished and became obsolete with the advent of gun rifling.

After the tour, we went back aboard the boat to have lunch.

Then we went swimming. Chris and I didn’t snorkel because we can’t see anything without our glasses. I was able to se coral and fish by holding the mask on top of the water. Chris and I are going to see how much prescription masks cost when we get back home, because we would both like to snorkel, and we decided that we are going to travel south every winter for one or two weeks We thoroughly enjoyed swimming which lasted about one and three quarters hours.

The boat ride back was great, virtually all 120 passengers slept for most of the ride back. We stopped for dinner at a rib place next to The Green Parrot on the walk back to the condo.

Then we drank, but not for very long because we were exhausted.

---