Dry Tortugas National Park

(70 Miles West of Key West, FL 3/16/2010) The number two highlight of our trip to Key West was taking the 70 mile boat ride to the Dry Tortuga's National Park. The least visited in the National Park system it preserves historic Fort Jefferson and 9 keys which are home to many endangered species like the Loggerhead Turtle. The Dry Tortuga's was a favorite haunt of pirates in the early 1800's. They were a nuisance and wrecked havoc on the shipping industry so the US Navy came in around 1822 and cleared them out. In the 1830's it was recommended that a fort be built on one of the islands, Garden Key, for coastal defense. Building started and stopped and then began again in earnest during the Civil War, but the fort was never completed. Instead it was turned into a prison. The most famous prisoner was Dr Samuel Mudd. Mudd was convicted of aiding John Wilkes Booth when he set the actors broken leg as he fled after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. He was sentenced to life in prison and imprisoned at Fort Jefferson. He was paroled after only 4 years for his part in aiding the forts population during a yellow fever epidemic. (His "cell" is the picture above with the 3 slits for windows).
The boat ride takes about 2 hours and the outgoing ride was exciting for us ending in 6 foots seas. The tour of the fort was interesting, but the sweet part of the deal was being able to snorkel in the shallows of the island. I thought the above ground stuff was awe inspiring, the under water world is equally or even more amazing.