The Dry Tortugas

7.12.11

We sailed out of Key West at 11am today heading for the Dry Tortugas. The seas were flat and the wind about 5-10 kts so smooth sailing for 3 hours and decided to anchor off Boca Grande- a key about 20 miles from KW. It is a bit rolly , and the wind is expected to kick up tonight. We hope to leave about 6am for the 50 miles to Dry Tortugas

8.12.11 Thursday. Decided at 7am to go to sea, even though the wind was strong. It was a big 9 hour day with the wind 10-20 knts and sea medium to big- some big slaps on the bridge deck which s a down side of being on a cat- sounds like a gun going off. I was sleeping/resting on the settee and trying to snooze during the afternoon and was awoken props. We noticed the boat had slowed and then could see the tangled line. Paddy had to go down the back steps (harness on) with the boat hook and bread knife and cut them off.  The area is covered with crab traps which are 2-3 foam balls connected to a cage on the bottom which catches the poor little stone crabs. The fishermen remove one crab claw and the animal is released and then it grows another claw ( it is supposedly the only crab that does this. We sailed into the Dry Tortugas which is a circular coral key and found about 3 other sail boats and 6 fishing boats. It is a huge brick fort that was built in the 1800’s. Tomorrow we will explore.

11 .12.11 Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas ( Dry – no water; Tortugas- turtle)

This is a huge brick fort built in the 1860’s of 16 million bricks. It was built as a protection against the Spanish, or any invader, but has never fired a shot in anger. It has 3 levels connected with concrete spiral staircases and huge turrets on the corners of the hexagonal shape. Over its history there has been much sadness, despair and disease, with a yellow fever epidemic almost killing all inhabitants in 1867. At times there were 2000 people living and working here in this isolated coral key. It was a prison at times and Dr Samuel Mudd was imprisoned here. He was one of the accused conspirators of the Abe Lincoln shooting, but was pardoned due to his good work as an MD during the epidemics.

Each day a ferry arrives from Key West with about 50 tourists so we were told to tag along on their tour and heard all the fascinating info about this place. There is also an excellent reference room which we spent an hour in yesterday. The island is run by the National Parks and we have had a couple of visits by the ranger to the boat to make sure we are disposing of our waste correctly and to get us to move away from a govt buoy. Yesterday morning, before the tourists arrived, we went for a walk/jog/run around the fort and along the top parapets. There are huge canons still up there. There is also a moat that was put in originally as both protection but also as a sewerage outlet. This never worked completely due to the tides in this part of the world not being very large ( as they are in the north east US where the designers were.) I recommend that you check out this place on Google earth.  

I tried snorkeling yesterday but the weather has been overcast so not very clear but nice to get my head underwater. We have regular visits under and around the boat from these huge fish called goliath gropers-they must be 1.5-2 meters, wide across the head and about 250 lb. They are fed regularly by the fisherman who use this spot as a nightly stopping point. We were given some lovely yellow-tail snapper from another boat so fried that up and had fish n chips for tea last night! We hope to leave for Cuba tonight, wind willing.

 Will add photoes tomorrow- takes too long on this slow connection