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Dry Tortugas National Park
Almost 70 miles west of Key West, Florida lies a cluster of seven coral reefs called the Dry Tortugas. First named The Turtles, Las Tortugas, by Spanish Explorer Ponce de Leon in 1513, these reefs soon read "Dry Tortugas" on mariners charts to show they had no fresh water. Dry Tortugas National Park includes the largest of the 19th century American coastal forts, Fort Jefferson.

Over Key West    Over a cruise ship
Key West is a major cruise ship port
Flying over Key West, you can see monolithic cruise ships coming and going. Most cruise ships stay for only several hours.

Over a shipwreck
Over a shipwreck
Shipwrecks are plentiful in the shallow shelf of water around the Keys. Several trees grow on this one.
Over Fort Jefferson    Over a small key    Along the beach
Over the water
From the air you can see how shallow the water is. Flying at a cruising altitude of 2000 feet, you can easily see sharks, manta rays, and even sea turtles swimming below you. A sea fan, which is a soft coral, decorates a beach.

Seaplane
Seaplane
By seaplane, it takes 45 minutes to get to the Dry Tortugas. Most people get there by high-speed catamarans, which take 2-3 hours.

Over Fort Jefferson    Walls of Fort Jefferson
Inside Fort Jefferson    Inside the walls of Fort Jefferson Lighthouse tower at Fort Jefferson

Fort Jefferson
Construction of Fort Jefferson began in 1846, continued for 30 years, but was never finished.  During the Civil War the fort was a military prison for captured deserters. It also held the 4 men convicted of complicity in President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the most famous being Dr. Samuel Mudd. The Fort was plagued with construction problems and Yellow Fever epidemics. The invention of the rifled cannon made the Fort obsolete, as it's thick walls could now be penetrated. The Army finally abandoned Fort Jefferson in 1874.


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