Towards the Dry Tortugas

A place that's called the Dry Tortugas, closer to Cuba than the US mainland, and America's most inaccessible national park? We had to go there. I thought Dad might like to see the seaplane, where we three and another father -and-son team made a tight squeeze with Chuck the taciturn pilot. It's forty-five minutes out from Key West and we flew out low.

The first picture is of "The Flats": for the first twenty miles out, the water is only three to five feet deep. There are plenty of shark, stingray and even porpoise down there - we were told. As we moved on to the "Quicksands", with huge sand dunes thirty feet under, we did spot the wreck which is all that remains of the World War II vessel, the "Patricia". She was sunk deliberately by the US navy to use for bombing practice. After that we flew over deeper water, about 70 feet, where even I could spot a few of the big sea turtles hanging out. And then onto the Fort itself...