West of Key West
Exploring remote tropical paradise of Dry Tortugas National Park
Ipeer over pilot Gary Bouchard’s shoulder as the turbine engine surges smoothly to life and the nose propeller becomes a near-invisible blur. I’m wearing my swimsuit under my clothes and have stashed my rented snorkel gear in the cargo hold. Like the other seven passengers, I have a window seat and unobstructed view on the high-wing float-equipped plane as it taxis to the runway at Key West International Airport and, after a short take-off run, becomes airborne. Forty minutes from now, we will splash down 70 miles west in the azure Caribbean Sea, in the southernmost national park in the United States, Dry Tortugas National Park.
Among the nation’s 407 national parks, only six others — three in Alaska, and one each in Michigan, Washington and the Territory of American Samoa — have fewer visitors than Dry Tortugas. Its reputation for spectacular birding and snorkeling, along with its intriguing history, has impelled me to devote a day of my Florida Keys excursion to exploring Garden Key, the largest of the seven Dry Tortugas islands and the site of the massive, lore-rich Fort Jefferson. Here, I’ll pay homage to the 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service and work my way north to Key Largo before hightailing it to Miami for a flight home.
As we cruise toward our destination at an altitude of a mere 500 feet, scores of sea turtles seemingly float through the air, suspended in the crystalline waters beneath us, their undulating shadow-selves on the underwater sand dunes in pursuit. I count more than 100 before becoming
distracted as the pilot directs our attention to the Quicksands, where treasure hunter Mel Fisher discovered the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Margarita — two shipwrecked Spanish galleons — and where it’s rumored that more than $500 million in gold, silver and jewels still remains strewn across an 8-mile area. The mast of Fisher’s work vessel, the Arbutus, which also sank here, juts from the surface and serves as a signpost to the site.
Back to the turtles: In 1513, Ponce de León designated these seven coral atolls Las Tortugas (the turtles) in recognition of the plenitude of these charming creatures, thought by ancient sailors to be totems of hope and longevity. (My guess: Because turtles are reptiles that lay eggs on land, a sighting of many turtles meant land was near and gave sailors hope that they’d live another day.) Five species (loggerheads, green turtles, leatherbacks, hawksbills and Kemp’s ridleys) reside within the park’s nearly 100 square miles, fewer than 40 acres of which are land. “Dry” was added later to warn sailors of the lack of fresh water. Fort lore
Bouchard eases back on the throttle as we approach Garden Key, circling the island once so I catch a breathtaking aerial view of the monstrous, ancient Fort Jefferson — still the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere. A hard-earned lesson from the War of 1812 taught the youthful United States that whomever controlled the Dry Tortugas controlled the entire Gulf of Mexico, as the only waters deep enough to be navigable through the mouth of the Gulf passed within cannon range of Garden Key.
Determined to protect that narrow passage from both foreign countries and pirates, the U.S. government sent masons, slave laborers, oh, and about 16 million or so bricks over from the continental U.S. The imposing hexagonal structure has two thousand casemates (arched ports to hold cannons) arranged in three tiers, encircled by a moat to keep enemy ships from accessing the casements. A drawbridge leads to the “sally port,” the heavily fortified entryway.
Begun in 1846, construction faltered at the outbreak of the Civil War, when building materials became increasingly scarce. At its peak, 1,729 troops once garrisoned here, plus the families of some officers; however, they never engaged in battle.
During the Civil War, Fort Jefferson became the prison of exile for the nation’s most heinous criminals.
Undoubtedly, the most notorious of the prisoners incarcerated here was Dr. Samuel Mudd, a Maryland physician who was acquainted — to what extent is still hotly debated among scholars — with Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Booth sought aid for a broken leg incurred during the assassination from the 31-year-old doctor he’d met a handful of times; Mudd’s setting of that leg earned him a life sentence for conspiracy and a one-way ticket to Fort Jefferson.
While there, a malaria outbreak struck Fort Jefferson, and Mudd toiled around the clock to save lives of officers, soldiers and the 52 remaining prisoners. Through his tireless exertions, only 38 of the 270 stricken men died. Two hundred-ninety-nine officers and soldiers signed a petition initiated by Lt. Edmund Zalinkski, who wrote, “He inspired the hopeless with courage, and by his constant presence in the midst of danger and infection, regardless of his own life, tranquillized the fearful and desponding. Many here who have experienced his kind and judicious treatment can never repay him.”
Although his efforts at Fort Jefferson earned him a pardon from President Andrew Jackson in 1869, to this day, he’s not been absolved of the original conspiracy charges, and his name is still, well … Mudd.
The plane’s floats slip into the glassy sea, and Bouchard eases the craft onto the beach, disgorg- ing us day-trippers onto the sugar-sand expanse. While the other passengers walk left toward the fort, I’m drawn to the right by the spectacle of hundreds of magnificent frigatebirds — with wingspans of 7 to 8 feet — wheeling and diving over Long Key. Birding bounty
Birders often identify more than 70 birds in a day here; in fact, 299 species of birds have been sighted in the Dry Tortugas to date, including such rarities as black noddies, white-tailed tropicbirds and red-necked phalaropes, as well as brown, masked, blue-footed and red-footed boobies.
Spring’s considered the optimum time, but then again, Bush Key’s closed during the nesting season from March through September, as it holds a breeding colony of 80,000 sooty terns — the species’ only major nesting site in the continental U.S. I’m a bit ahead of that, and as luck has it, the narrow channel between Garden Key and Bush Key has sanded in, so I can walk over.
As I stroll barefoot down the shoreline, tight-packed schools of permit dart through the shallows, shattering the surface as they scatter to avoid streaking tarpon in hot pursuit. Brown pelicans dive into the schooling fish from above, lumbering off with beakfuls of wriggling fish. Elegant American avocets cut scythelike swashes though the shallows with their distinctive long upturned beaks, while ruddy turnstones and plovers peck among the dunes.
Although Long Key, the third atoll, is off limits year round, I perch atop a dune at the end on Bush Key and sit rapt, elbows on knees for stability and binoculars pressed to my face, glassing the sooty terns, roseate terns, brown noddies and magnificent frigatebirds that flit amongst the mangroves. Marine reverie
After exploring the fort — and even walking along the parapets crowning the edifice — I don mask and snorkel for a plunge in the aquamarine expanse behind the campground. As brilliantly toned as the myriad kaleidoscope-patterned reef fish appeared from above the surface, they’re even more stunning when viewed underwater. Queen angelfish, empress angelfish, gray angelfish, butterflyfish, parrotfish, clownfish and neon-yellow smallmouth grunts — and those are only the ones I can identify among the seemingly endless species — dart among the corals, their neon arrays of light and dark serving as camouflage against the living corals shimmering in the refracted light. I float nearly weightless just beneath the surface, entranced by their seemingly endless variety of electric colors, vivid patterns and elegant shapes.
Surfacing, I see a fellow passenger waving a towel from the beach, motioning that Bouchard’s ready for us to board the aircraft for the flight back to Key West.
As I dash for the plane, I cast an envious glance at the campers in their colorful tents. The park limits overnight camping to only three tents and just three consecutive nights — an experience worth weighing for my next visit. This time, I have a schedule to keep and more Key adventures planned, so I clamber aboard, sodden, sandy and satisfied.
The floatplane plows through the water and becomes airborne. Bouchard dips the left wing, and the craft banks to the northeast. My nose pressed to the glass, I watch this singularly idyllic treasure of a national park slowly recede from sight, then vanish into the seamless horizon of azure sea and sky.
Houston-based Susan L. Ebert is the author of “The Field to Table Cookbook,” published by Rizzoli in April.