Dry Tortugas

On Monday, May 24th, we got up early to ride the ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park. Like Isle Royale up in the UP, the only way to get there is ferry or seaplane. This park is much different than Isle Royale though.  After the 2.5 hour ride, we arrived at the Garden Key, home to Fort Jefferson.  There was an option for a guided tour of the fort, but we chose to walk through ourselves and save more time for snorkling.  The fort was cool; its the largest masonry structure in the Americas.  It also was a prison for Dr Samuel Mudd, the doctor who helped Lincoln's assassin.  While he was a prisoner there, he helped them get through the yellow fever that infected 275 out of 400 people on the island at one point.  

After walking through the fort and eating lunch, we snorkled along the outside edge of the moat and saw coral and very colorful fish.  My favorite part of snorkling was swimming through a huge school of tiny fish and having them part around me.  There were also hundreds if not thousands of birds on the peninsula of the island.  They fly in from as far as Africa to nest in the spring, and it was perfect timing.

After snorkling, we rode back, had some Cuban food for dinner, and drove up to Florida City where we stayed for the night.  

In the morning, I drove just 20 minutes over to Biscayne National Park on the East coast.  This park is almost completely water and protects the northern end of the same reef we snorkled at Dry Tortugas.  This reef is the third largest in the world.  Unfortunatly, all the snorling tours were booked for the next week, so we'll have to come back to do that a different time.  

A few hours drive later, we were back in Sarasota.  Today was a rest day and now we'll be heading out of Florida.