After I completed visiting all 50 states, I set my sights on seeing all of the 63 National Parks and as many of the 428 National Park Service sites (Monuments, Seashores, Historic Sites, etc) as possible. When I set my sights on visiting all of the National Parks, there were only 58. A few of them like the ones in American Samoa and the Virgin Islands may be out of my range but for now -I want to see all of them. I am armed with my Interagency National Park pass that allows me free entry into the parks and I am ready to go. (It also saves me money on souvenirs, camping fees and other costs – that was a sales pitch if you didn’t recognize it.) Thus, a primary desire when I went to Key West was to go to the Dry Tortugas National Park. I knew nothing about except that it was a boat ride away.
It turns out that it is more than 2 hours away from Key West and is 70 miles out into the middle of Gulf. There are only two ways to get there: by Ferry or seaplane. I chose the ferry.
The water was reasonably calm on the way out but by afternoon, the winds had picked up and the crew was begging passengers to take some Dramamine. I was fine. I actually enjoyed it, but I know others around me did not.
The Fort was built on a Key that lies in the middle of a shallow bowl in the middle of the Gulf. A lighthouse was first built there to keep ships from being shipwrecked on the reefs around the key. The fort was built in the mid-1800’s to combat piracy, it also served as a detention camp and vantage point during the Civil War for the Union Army. The Fort was decommissioned during World War I and later was set aside as a bird sanctuary as the birds of the area had found this as resting area.
The views of the beach and the shore around the island were beautiful. The skies were crystal clear and blue. It was a gorgeous day for a boat ride!
