Dry Tortugas National Park; otherworldly, ghostly, hauntingly beguiling, a stalwart monument to American ingenuity and resourcefulness, remote, wild, and intensely beautiful, the park is all of this and more. At the outset, overnight parking in Key West where we caught the ferry was a major concern of ours as we were told last minute that our truck was too tall to fit into the long-term garage, so we scrambled: asked camp host Mr Incredible to rent us his vehicle, checked into peer-to-peer car rentals through Turo, and finally drove to Key West to assess the situation. After a great deal of wasted time and stress, we discovered the truck actually would fit (barely), so we arose at 04:30, unloaded our camping gear at 0600, and boarded the Yankee Freedom for a 2 hr boat trip to Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas. I was so excited to finally be here that I fairly trembled. Ten of us were permitted to overnight camp on the island, so we found a perfect camp spot and then set out to explore the massive fort ruins. It is simply an amazing place: 6 sided, 3 tiered, and comprised of 16 million bricks, it is massive and was constructed in the mid 1800’s first to safeguard US shipping lanes in the Gulf of Mexico and later during the Civil War by the Union to impede shipping to the Confederates. Also used as a prison, Dr Samuel Mudd, one of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination and the doctor who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, was imprisoned here.
After establishing our camp, I treated Aaron to a lengthy self-guided tour of the Fort, enjoyed the small visitor's center, snorkeled a bit, and ate a dinner of ham & cheese on a pristine white sand beach overlooking sailboats anchored in the aquamarine waters of the bay…all by ourselves. The day trippers had long since returned to Key West (was a wee bit unnerving to watch the ferry sail off leaving a few souls behind), so apart from us 10 campers and a handful of park rangers, we had the island to ourselves. Well, and the 30,000 birds nesting on a tiny key just offshore allowing Aaron countless enjoyable hours of watching the frigate birds glide effortlessly overhead. Quiet, lonely, wildly beautiful, remote, exquisite, and haunted by Union soldiers, officers, their wives and children as well as the slaves and prisoners who lived here, we were spoiled to have experienced this unique opportunity to overnight camp on The Dry Tortugas. It took a great deal of effort to arrange all the logistics to get here, but what a once-in-a-lifetime experience it has been. It far exceeded my long anticipated hopes and expectations. These two days will be a treasured memory.
Good deed: Aaron says I served him above and beyond by lending him my shoulder on the boat trip out so he could sleep. Ha, that’s hardly a sacrifice! I say Aaron served me much more when he patiently and without a moments hesitation waited for me as I made an urgent trip to the restroom which was, at that moment, on the opposite side of the island. He just sat and waited without a roll of the eyeballs or a shred of impatience, pretending he didn’t even mind the half hour it took me. He’s such a sweet man.
Three amazing things: 1- Fort Jefferson is simply incredible; it’s like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before. It has innovative shutters that slam closed behind the cannon after firing, a moat surrounding it, and even a drawbridge, a bakery, and a chapel. My favorite is the furnace structure where cannon balls were dropped in one end where they were super heated as they rolled down a slide above hot flames ready to then be loaded into cannons and fired at boats which would erupt into flames. Clever! And rather archaic.
2- The millions of hermit crabs and sand crabs on the beach with their tiny eyeballs perched above their heads which we watched scurry sideways along the sand. They’d dart after Aaron’s tossed pecans and cache them in their sand holes, then pop their beady eyeballs out a second later looking for more. Hilarious!
3- One of the park rangers has been stationed here for 3 years. I can’t comprehend how he handles such remote living. Prisoners, slaves, and military men were driven to suicide from boredom, and even I am glad we chose to stay only one night.
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