Day tripping to the Dry Tortugas

The place to go when the Keys aren't far enough

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By Margaret Menge

mmenge@keynoter.com

Posted - Monday, October 20, 2008 01:10 PM EDT

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I suppose the captain always says at the start what a glorious day it is, and how it's the best he's ever seen. But on the day I made my first trip out to the Dry Tortugas, he didn't have to bluff about it. Aside from about 15 raindrops falling on our heads just before we passed the Marquesas, it was a day without peer, and the Gulf lay before us sparkling in the sun like a plate of diamonds.

We parked in the Key West city lot at about 7 a.m. and walked over to the bottom of Margaret Street, where Hemingway used to swim with friends in the afternoon in the late '20s and '30s. My friend bought tickets at the window. The locals price is $99 per person, but with a fuel surcharge, the total for two of us was $223.

I stood against a wooden outbuilding at the foot of the pier and read the copy of the New York Post I'd just picked up along with my Cuban coffee at Five Brothers while watching the variety of people congregating near us. After a time, we started walking down the pier toward the Yankee Freedom II, a double-decker catamaran tied up at the end. A trail of people followed along behind us, and we all fell into a line at the steps leading up to the boat.

A boat trip is about expectation, about waiting and watching and listening, and wondering what lies ahead, wondering what you might see out on the open water and under it, and who you might meet along the way. We were quiet at the start of this trip -- everyone was -- primed, maybe, for clues of what lay ahead.

Our guide, Rick, went over some rules before letting us board. Smoking is allowed only on the first level, in back. Deposit butts in receptacles. We were the second group on board, and found ourselves in a cabin lined with booths and tables and a low ceiling. After a moment's hesitation (reserve a booth for ourselves or no?) we kept going, out the back, and up the stairs to the deck. After a week spent in an office behind desks, we wanted no part of inside living.

The Yankee Freedom II was built just to make this trip, from Key West to the Dry Tortugas and back. The boat is owned by the brother and sister-in-law of Captain Rick, who first came down to the Keys only for the season, and then began staying year round when business picked up. Rick and his brother grew up on the water as the sons of a fisherman and then passenger boat operator in Hampton Beach, N.H.

We weren't long on board before a girl of about 19 in a bikini top and bike shorts who'd been standing nearby asked me where I got my pants. She's from Connecticut, formerly a pre-med student at the University of Connecticut, now leaning towards alternative medicine (wants to open a yoga studio!) She was in Florida with her brother, her father (the track coach at the University of Connecticut) and her mother, a business owner. And so began one of the most interesting aspects of the trip -- the opportunity to meet and come to know people you might not ordinarily encounter in the Keys. The blond man and woman sitting on the bench across from us were from Denmark, and at the tail end of an American tour that took them through the western states and would take them up to Miami Beach on Monday. A man from Tampa, a computer tech, was there with his boy, who stuck close to his father's side the whole day, peering up at adults with big brown eyes.

A breakfast buffet was served on the boat -- cold cereal, coffee, bagels with cream cheese packets -- and as we neared the Tortugas, snorkel masks, tubes and flippers were handed out on the first level.

There are seven islands that make up the Dry Tortugas -- the most notable is Garden Key, almost all of which is used up for the massive Fort Jefferson. The island chain is part of the Dry Tortugas National Park. And it is fitting that it is in federal hands. Lying almost 70 miles west of Key West, the island chain was, and still is, a player in international affairs. Fort Jefferson was to be built to ward off the Spanish, whose power and ambition in the early and mid 1800s was waning, but still worrisome to the young United States. Cuban immigrant smugglers use the islands now as a nice low-profile drop-off point. The Park Service pays the Yankee Freedom II to take the migrants in to Key West, where they're driven up to Miami and granted amnesty under the dry foot policy. Captain Rick says Miami relatives sometimes call his home in Key West, asking if their relatives have arrived yet.

We disembarked at Fort Jefferson right around 10:15 a.m., giving us more than four hours on the island to do whatever we liked. We headed first into the fort, where we pawed at the ground, looked out the windows, and read up on the meaning of the word 'bastion.' We caught up with a tour group for about 10 minutes and then split and headed over to the beach on the west side of the island.

The feeling on the island was unforgettable. Sound traveled strangely, so that you could shout out and your voice would float across the water. It was maybe because the red walls of the fort rose up so abruptly from the edge of the land, or because the ocean waters lay so still. The best snorkeling we found was on the east side of the island, around the boulders. I dove down into an underwater valley and into a school of tropical fish, who seemed not overly concerned about human beings -- aware, maybe, of their protected status in this marine sanctuary.

We returned to the boat for lunch, which was the only disappointing part of the trip. Stale bread in black plastic tubs was put out for sandwiches with deli meat (not Boar's Head) and potato salad delivered by Sysco. I was wishing I had packed my own sandwiches, or at least some bags of nuts for fuel.

We were some of the last to board in the afternoon to head back to Key West, and I stared long and longingly at the yellow seaplane that had just come up on shore, and glanced back at the dozen or so tents on the other side of the pier. I wasn't really ready to leave this place. Next time, I've decided, I'll stay overnight.

The Yankee Freedom II takes a limited number of campers out each day. You just have to bring every single thing with you, and take everything back: there's no water on the island, and no place to leave garbage. The National Park Service calls it a "primitive" camping experience, but this is maybe an exaggeration. There are picnic tables marked with campsite numbers, composting toilets, and grills (though you have to bring your own charcoal).

For camping reservations on the Yankee Freedom II ferry, call (305) 294-7009. You can also call the Dry Tortugas National Park at (305) 242-7700 for specific questions about camping and what's allowed under the park's rules.