Wet Dinghy Ride to Lager Head Key
22 November 2017 | Anchored off Ft Jefferson, Dry Tortugas
Helen
Took our time getting up today. It was bouncy all night from the East winds. Mark worked on adding some grounding for lightning protection. Hopefully, we won't ever need it. It ended up being too wet to attach them to the hulls. Dinghied to shore and rescued Eric and Wendy's sailing dinghy which separated from their sailboat. Then headed in to talk to the Park Ranger. We wanted information on Logger Head Key snorkeling areas and wondered if they would be able to provide us with any exit permits which the US does not use. They helped with info on the Key but could not do anything for us on the documentation. Mark remembered the stamps in the gift shop, so we took our boat document and added their stamp with a date of departing tomorrow. Then once again, we had lunch on the Ferry boat. Took the dinghy back to the boat and got into our swim gear. Packed up the dinghy with our snorkeling gear and underwater camera. It was quite the pounding seas and about 3 miles away. My back was hurting from falling down some of the big waves. We tried going fast but ended up at a speed we could endure. Got to the island which houses a huge lighthouse. There was a building that looked like a house and in okay shape, although no one lives on this island. There was a bank of 24 huge solar panels for the lighthouse. There were other buildings. They said it was a five minute walk to the other side of the island and good snorkeling. We took an alternate path thru some cacti but made it to the beach. Then we could see coral but the water was pretty shallow. At least not deep enough to snorkel. We walked over the rocks and got to deeper water and donned our snorkel gear. There were two long barracudas us to greet us. The coral was plentiful as were the fish. Then we got to a sandy bottom and weeds so we turned around and headed back to shore. It felt like it was after 6 pm but it was not even 3 pm. It was a slog of a dinghy ride back. Every few waves were sizeable and splashed us. I stood up the whole way back. Mark was driving the dinghy and bailing the excess salt water. We made it back safely. It took a long time and I was worried we would run out of fuel. Took showers off the back. Another huge catamaran anchored behind us. A fishing boat anchored on the other side of us. The sun is just setting as we watch a bride and groom get photographed in front of the final sea plane trip back to Key West. We are tired and may re-think leaving tomorrow. Congratulations to Stanford on making it to the PAC 12 Championship Game this Friday!