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I think that this is my favorite park so far. It is surely most unique. Dry Tortugas National Park features [tag]Fort Jefferson[/tag] and the only live coral reef in the US, [tag]Dry Tortugas National Park[/tag] is located 70 miles WEST of Key West, FL. It really is out in the middle of nowhere. Originally, it was designed to prevent invasion of the US from the gulf, then was occupied by the Union and hampered the Confederacy’s supply efforts, then became a military prison. It was abandoned and later turned into a national park in 1935, one of the first.

So I packed my backpack, saddled up with two gallons of water (there is no water on the island) and showed up at the docks at 7:00 am. I took the “Fast Cat” through Sunny Days Catamarans to the island. FYI, there is another ferry service available, the Yankee Freedom, but they were full when I checked.

The view approaching the island is unforgettable. After traveling across the open gulf for nearly two and a half hours, you catch sight of a island on the horizon. Not until you get very close do you realize the size of the structure, and then it hits you. They had to cart every single one of the bricks, cannons, granite blocks, emplacements and barrels of concrete here – via sail! Insane!

After the tour boats left, the only people on the whole island were about a dozen campers, a few WONDERFUL volunteers (Hi guys, you know who you are) and a small number of park rangers. It really made for an intimate and wonderful camping experience. The small campsite is located just outside the walls of the fort and has a dozen spots or so. I don’t know if it was the distance from Key West or the imposing bulk of the old (haunted?) fort, but I have never met a group of people that went out of their way to be social and friendly. I met two bartenders from Key West, a cute young couple and a group of Brits who venture to the park every year from Nottingham Forest. Also spent a lot of time with a very cool couple from Colorado (Hi!!!) who not only gave me some great ideas for a future book (thanks NJ) but let me borrow their kayak. I got to get me one of those!

But come sunset, I had the fort virtually to myself and was able to snap dozens of photos of the place. Man, I HAVE to replace my Nikon, but I was still happy with my little Pentax. The fort was all hand built, of course, and the place is impressive. It’s massive like only a fort can be, yet with subtle details like curved and peaked arches, impossible to imagine doing out of brick with only hand tools. That and the ocean, makes for a unique and memorable place.

Unfortunately, I’ve was fighting a bought of conjunctivitis(!) and was off contacts. The [tag]snorkeling[/tag] would have been incredible, but I was relegated to glasses. *SIGH* I’ll just have to come back.

I went to sleep under slightly cloudy skies, but awoke at about 5:00am for no reason at all. I stuck my head out of the tent and was greeted with a perfectly clear, perfectly black sky. I wandered to the far side of the fort with the waves making sounds against the fort wall like kids running with sticks along a picket fence, an occasional splash hitting me in the face. The stars were so bright and there were so many it was difficult to pick out the constellations. There was so little light pollution I could make out stars right up to the horizon – incredible.

The trip home was spent talking to Brenda, a professional photographer from Florida. We spent the time discussing [tag]photography[/tag], places to see, kids and jobs.

All in all, a wonderful place to visit, and one I will definately return to.

Oh, and while on the island the guy from the cute couple proposed. He had brought the ring and hid it in a hinged clam and went snorkeling. When he tried to get his fiancee-to-be to pick it up from the ocean floor, she yelled at him for touching the PROTECTED wildlife. Well, if you thought she was stubborn trying to merely touch it, imagine the job he had when he had to convince her to crack it open! I imagine she about hucked it out of his reach so that this BOY would stop playing with the wildlife. Luckily, he got her to peek inside and popped the question. Congrats!
[tags]proposal[/tags]