S/V Iemanja: The Dry Tortugas

The Dry Tortugas are a beautiful cluster of islands. This is as far west in Florida as you can get, including Loggerhead Key. There's a spot in Key West that is further south, but nothing this far west.

Garden Key with Fort Jefferson used to be separated from Bush Key and Long Key, the bird sanctuary islands, but no longer. Some years ago the sand has shifted and closed off the pass-through between islands.
That's Long Key in the far background. The frigatebird guano stench was enough to knock your socks off when you kayaked or dinghyed up to that island. Amazing number of frigate's.
Bush Key is home to nesting brown noddy's and sooty terns. And they held garbled conversations all the night long; pretty funny. It's a wonderful cheery sound.

Holding is great on the southern side between Garden and Bush and that's where we dropped our hook. Wave protection is all around except the SW. And the weather was pretty mild during our stay with a cold front passing through giving us a way to exit to the east... Had to wait for it, I must admit.

The water was a bit cloudy, made for less than perfect snorkeling, and made for a difficult time water-making. We had great sun and wind for power, but still couldn't make water with the strainer clogging up. Pre-filters were fine, but the strainer bogged down. It was almost like Long Island in the Far Bahamas with it's silty water.

The beach walks, especially over on Loggerhead were wonderful. A bit of an exciting dinghy ride over there with a few big waves sneaking up on us. But cool! The beach on the back of Loggerhead used to be wider, notice the bldg which cracked in half with the ground completely gone from beneath half of it...