Key West (2), Dry Tortugas

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

We are off on another big day.  The main event will be the trip out to the Dry Tortugas.  But the seaplane check in time isn’t until 1:30 pm.  So there is time to do another Key West exploration.

Linda chose to tour the Ernest Hemingway House and Jim chose to walk around to take a few photos and do a geocache.  You will see our photos in a movie by following the link.  I hope you enjoy it.  We really enjoyed the day and Jim enjoyed linking the photos together (next time it won’t take so long).  Watch this (60MB):  Our Day to Dry Tortugas

 

Some more details on the day….

We parked near Duval Street and walked together to the Hemingway House.  At this point, Linda went on the tour and she regrets not taking a photo of the cats.  We have several friends noted for their close relationship with their cats.  A funny sign in a window sometime ago reads, “Dog have owners.  Cats have Staff.”

Duval Street is the rough equivalent to Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  It is the main street where things are happening.  Just about every other place is eat and drink.  It is sort of known to be a loosely regulated area during Fantasy Fest especially later in the evenings.   But the Fest is over now and during the day times (when we are there), it is just a tourist area (100% tourist area) with several cruise boats docked daily. 

Linda enjoyed the tour of the Hemingway House and Jim got the geocache.  It is now time for the lunch that we brought with us and time to go to the airport.  The Seaplane Adventures company makes it very easy.  Check in is simple.  They give you a cooler with your choice of soft drinks and fill it with ice.  You remember the letter code of your cooler.  All the coolers are the same size so the pilot can stack them in the storage compartment.  They have mask, fins and snorkels (included in the price), or you can take your own.  You can take beach bags, but no umbrellas or chairs. 

You can tell from the photos that we really enjoyed this tour.  The flight is superb.  They fly at 500 feet for 35 minutes.  You can see the reefs, tidal inlets, keys and a couple of shipwrecks.  Some flights are lucky enough to see marine life, but we were not lucky.  You arrive at the Garden Key, the pilot drives over to the sandy beach, points the nose out and reverses thrust to back the planes pontoons onto the beach.  In less that 15 seconds, the pilot is out of his door, opens the passenger door and you start to get off.  As we say in the photos, “All Flights Should Be This Much Fun.”  We spent a short time touring Fort Jefferson and spent the remainder of our time here snorkeling and swimming in the pristine waters.  Needless to say, we hated leaving the island (Garden Key).

Links:

Fort Jefferson National Park

Seaplane Adventures