Saturday/Sunday February 10-11, 2024 - It was a quiet weekend, some rain on Saturday and the Super Bowl on Sunday. We had heard from someone at pickleball about the weekend flea market on Long Pine Key, just a few minutes from Bahia Honda. It was a true flea market, not a farmer's market with a little bit of anything you could want to buy!
The Long Pine Key flea market
walks around Bahia Honda
more sunsets from our campsite
The jetty at Calusa Beach
fishing
Bike ride to Sandspur Beach
nachos for the super bowl
and pizza bagels with a view
Monday February 12, 2024 - Dry Tortugas NP is a small group of keys 70 miles from Key West. Tickets for the ferry need to be booked months in advance, so I had picked a random day while we were scheduled to be at Bahia Honda hoping it would be a nice day. We lucked out, it was sunny and not too windy! It was an early morning for us since Bahia Honda is 40 minutes from Key West and the ferry check-in was at 7AM. There is one ferry per day that goes to Dry Tortugas. It's a 2.5 hr ferry ride, with 4 hours on the island and then 2.5 hr ride back. It's a lot of time on the boat! Luckily we sat with a couple from Texas, that we enjoyed chatting with. They were newly retired and enjoying traveling as much as we do. It was fun to hear about their favorite trips and share ours. The ferry ticket was $185 for each of us with a small discount since we have the Senior lifetime park pass. They provided bagels and yogurt for breakfast and a Jersey Mikes sub with chips and cookies for lunch. They also provided snorkel equipment if you wanted to snorkel. We did part of the 1.5 hour tour of the fort, had lunch and then snorkeled. After snorkeling we enjoyed walking around the fort on our own.
a long ferry ride
Fort Jefferson is the largest brick masonry building in the Americas (16 million bricks were shipped here to build it, some coming all the way from Maine!)
There were a few seaplanes that came and went while we were there.
seaplane parking, dinghy parking and ferry parking
The park ranger said we were allowed to wander around the fort while we were there, but to be careful since we were so far from emergency services. He said if anyone got hurt it was a $50,000 medivac flight to the mainland.
The island is 16 acres and the fort covers 11 acres. The island was discovered by Ponce De Leon in 1513. He named it Tortugas for the large population of sea turtles that were living here. It was later named "Dry" Tortugas to denote that there wasn't any fresh water here, which was extremely important for seafarers of that era to know.
Construction of Fort Jefferson was started in 1846 and it was never fully completed
There was a lighthouse built on the key before the fort was built, but while building the fort they added a new lighthouse.
picnic lunch
There is a moat wall that surrounds the fort. It helps protect the fort from the pounding waves and from enemy troops
There were 2 small beaches which you could snorkel from
We didn't see much while snorkeling, but it was fun to snorkel next to the moat wall, as a lot of "stuff" had piled up on the ocean floor next to the wall
After snorkeling we wandered around the fort on our own
The fort, which is six sided consists of 2 tier casements
Communication archway
Kevin looking out at the magazine
spiral stairways connected the floors
Looking out at the internal parade ground from the top of the stairway
Canons were on the corners of the top tier
nice view from the top (but a sheer 50 foot drop off with no railings around the entire top tier)
There are coral reefs all around the Tortugas. This was an important spot for the lighthouse because of all the reefs and it was a necessary spot for the fort in that it protected the passage into the gulf of Mexico
a break in the moat wall
the path was a bit close to the edge for me
there's our ferry peaking around the rampart
At the onset of the Civil War 62 men were sent to Fort Jefferson to keep it from falling into the hands of the rebels. In 1861 mutinous soldiers were imprisoned here. At its height in 1865 there were 470 soldiers and 273 prisoners.
Tuesday/Wednesday February 13-14, 2024 - We've had mostly beautiful 75 degree weather while we've been at Bahia Honda, but we did get a morning shower on Tuesday. We've been on a schedule of pickleball, walks, bike rides to the beach, sunsets from our campsite, repeat. We love it here!
rainy morning
another bike ride on the Old 7 mile bridge after a morning of pickleball
Since pickleball is on Marathon, we decided to ride our bikes after pickleball, to Sombrero Beach for a change from our usual Sandspur Beach at Bahia Honda. It's a nice protected beach, but lots more people than we're used to.
Kev, of course had to go for a swim. It was as flat as a lake!
It was a 3 mile bike ride from the Marathon Community Park to Sombrero Beach
Thursday February 15, 2024 - We're always up before sunrise, but today we decided to walk over to the ocean side to watch the sunrise. Kev then decided to go for a snorkel out in front of our campsite. He said it was actually pretty good snorkeling, no coral reefs but lots of fish, and a big drop off not too far out. I was his lifeguard, watching for boats. He technically shouldn't be out there snorkeling without a dive flag, since this area is an active waterway, but it was early and not the weekend, so not busy. In the afternoon we headed to Sandspur Beach
Our view before sunset
We're only a short walk from the ocean side
the clouds kept us from a good sunrise
headed out for a snorkel
Kevin engrossed in a good book
ice cream cones from the marina
Kev rigged a coffee can to his bike, for an easier way to take the umbrella to the beach. It seemed to work perfectly!
Friday February 16, 2024 - It was another day of pickleball, beach and sunset. I'm sure you're getting tired of all my sunset pics but I'm not! It just doesn't seem to get old for me!
