Adventures in the Keys

Ah! The weekend! Bright and early Saturday morning we boarded a fast cat to the Dry Tortugas. This little island is home to Fort Jefferson that was built early in US history to protect the gulf from pirates and to watch out for trade coming and going to New Orleans. Most ships would have passed this area because of its proximity to the Gulf Stream. It's a huge fort and was actually never attacked but you can still see canons, light house, and ruins of barracks. It was also used as a prison during the civil war to hold Rebels as it was held by Union forces. All around the fort is a moat and past the moat is the sea where there is good snorkeling. After lunch on the boat we donned our wet suits and snorkels and went out into the water. It was cold but the wet suits helped. We saw some neat fish right along the moat wall but the water was not real clear so we moved to some old pier pilings. John went down thru the middle of the pilings and saw some pretty neat fish right up against the pilings. I wasn't comfortable going down the middle so I hung out on the edge but didn't see much. The water is really not very clear here either.

The birds love this area. It's mostly birds that stop here along their migration route. This is home to the Magnificent Frigatebird and Sooty Tern. Both of these birds spend most of their life in the air, rarely landing. Also lots of pelicans, gulls, and terns.

This is where the fort is located, we were closer to Cuba than mainland USA.

It was a long day so when we got home we took a fast shower and headed out to dinner in Key West, ending the day at the wine bar!   

Sunday afternoon we tried to go SCUBA diving. We got on the boat with three other men and rode 7 miles out to a reef near a lighthouse. I was really nervous about doing this and we both required a lot of help getting our gear set up for diving. But the dive master and other passengers were very nice about helping us and giving us advice. I hyperventilated after jumping in and it took a bit to get me calmed down and ready to dive. Poor John was really worried about me, not knowing how to help. But I calmed down. The bad part is that visibility in the water was ZERO! Couldn't even see my feet. The other three divers were very experienced divers and even they said there is no way they wanted to dive. We were in a protected marine sanctuary so could not touch the coral and if you can't see where you are going, you are very likely to break coral. So the dive ended before we even went under. We have a rain check so will be going out again when the water clears.

I'm writing this on Monday morning -- too tired the last two nights to do anything!