Dry Tortugas - National Park
Dry Tortugas on top of Fort Jefferson
On Tuesday, January 31, 2023, we hiked Dry Tortugas National Park. The park is located on an island 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. The day started out at the Grinnell Docks in Key West, as the only access to Dry Tortugas is via a boat or seaplane. We chose a vessel named Yankee Freedom II. As we boarded the vessel, we saw a large rainbow in the distance. I took a good picture of it and posted to the photo gallery below. There were about 200 people onboard the day we went and the trip to the park took two and half hours. Denise was with me for this adventure.
Dry Tortugas National Park is still an unspoiled land and seascape of pristine coral and sand islands. Fort Jefferson, a massive military outpost built during the Civil War to safeguard U.S. shipping and defend the Gulf of Mexico towers over the main island (Garden Key). The Fort is the largest man-made masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere. Experts estimate that approximately 16 million bricks were used in construction of the Fort.
The Fort was an active military outpost all through the Civil War and was garrisoned by 1,500 Union soldiers. At the same time, it served as a military prison. Its most famous prisoner was Dr. Samuel Mudd, the physical who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg following Booth’s shooting of President Lincoln. I took pictures of Dr. Mudd prison cell and posted in the gallery. The whole structure is encircled by a classic moat. In 1992 the Fort was proclaimed as Dry Tortugas National Park.
The park is a unique paradise for many species of migratory birds. Between March and September each year 100,000 sooty terns come to the Bush Key island to nest. Also seen among the sooties are approximately 2,500 breeding brown noddies. Both species feed in the nearby waters by capturing fish and squid. The islands of the Tortugas lie across the main flyway from the United States to Cuba and South America.
After our arrival we hiked all three levels of the Fort infrastructure, taking many pictures along the way. Each level features openings with great views of the Gulf of Mexico. The Fort infrastructure has enough openings to support 450 cannons. The entire inside of the structure is marked by archways as far as the eye can see. There are numerous pictures of the inside of the Fort posted in the gallery. You could just image what it was like to be a soldier manning a cannon during his watch.
Once we explored the Fort, we hiked around the Fort on the wall of the moat that encircled the structure. There was marine life and some fish living in the moat water. As we finished up the moat hike, we walked over to the North Beach on the island for a quick swim in the crystal-clear water. Once we dried off in the 75-degree sun, we walked the beaches of both Garden Key and Bush Key. By the time we finished the Bush Key hike, the boarding time for our trip back to Key West was upon us. A couple of last looks around and then we were back on the Yankee Freedom II.
This was a true adventure and a very beautiful island. The entire grounds were a mixture steeped in both history and nature. Both seemed to co-exist quit well.
