The power of walking

This is an interesting side effect of our trip.  We walk everywhere.  There are some electric golf carts here, but we don't use them unless we have to move something heavy for a long distance.  So it's always walk, walk, walk, much of the time on sand.  And to get to our apartment on the second floor, it's 20 steps up and 20 steps down, which we do many times a day.  As a result, we've both lost weight - over 10 pounds each.  And it's not from lack of eating - we're both eating constantly.  Now if we can keep it up when we get home!

This may be our last post - we're leaving tomorrow, the 7th, to return home.  Back to the real world!

Our feathered friend

Most days, while we're sitting on our porch, this dove comes to visit.  To eat, actually.  In the beginning we fed it Cherios, but later tried peanuts.  Now it's a snob, will only eat peanuts!

Special flag

The flag we raised today has special significance.  It was flown over the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2010, in honor of the 75th anniversary of Dry Tortugas National Park.

A condo with a view

We've showed pictures before of our apartment and the view, but here are a couple of videos. The first is from outside the fort.  Going right to left it starts at the dock, shows the fort and entrance, and pauses at the "front porch" of our apartment.  There is some white paint on each side of our porch.  Monia is waving, but it's a little hard to see her.  The second video is from our front porch looking at the harbor.

Snorkeling at Bird Key

Friday we took a kayak out and headed for the Brick Wreck, about a mile away on Bird Key Bank.  It is hard to find but we had directions.  We did not find it but were distracted by a glorious reef!  We had our snorkeling gear, so over we went.  We saw the usual lovely tropicals and the water was crystal clear.  We saw our largest lobster--guessing about 15 inches without the antenna, and our first Lion Fish.  Lots of anenomes and fans.  The bottom had many brain corals.  Want to go back, but the wind has picked up to 20mph; so too rough now. 

BTW it is lots of fun to get into the kayak when the water is over your head.  Actually not as hard as I had feared for I am back here to write this. (Monia)

Finally got a big one!

Fishing hasn't been very good this trip.  There are plenty of fish around, but they're not so easy to catch.  Almost every time we go snorkeling we see tarpon, and sometimes from the dock, too.  They appear to be only interested in the big schools of minnows. And every day we see Spanish mackeral in the harbor, feeding on the minnows and at times jumping out of the water.  Both of these are not interested in lures, and there is no live bait big enough to fish with. The only thing consistently good is the mangrove snapper around the dock.  They love the minnows, dead or alive, and we've caught lots of these.

Yesterday we were fishing with lures again, and I had a big strike.  It jumped once; I thought it might be a tarpon but it turned out to be this big barracuda - about 4' long.  Had a good time landing it, then release it for another day.  Still have not given up on tarpon, though.

BTW, our trip has been extended until June 7.  The next volunteer is not coming until the 9th, and they just can't run this place without us!

Chug boat

Everyone know we're close to Cuba - about 90 miles from Havana. As a result many Cubans trying to escape come here. If they make it to shore they're subject to the "wet foot, dry foot" policy and can stay. This is one of the boats they typically use. It's called a chug boat because it goes very slow. It's designed (we use the term loosely) to be used only once. Many use automobile engines as the motors. This boat landed here some time last year. As you can see the accomodations are definitely not first class.

The compass pictured below directed these people to freedom by way of the Dry Tortugas. When the boat was being scrapped, we asked for it as a symbol of their bravery and determination.

Once here the boat must be disposed of by the park service. Usually they are loaded onto the Fort Jefferson park service boat & taken to Key West. This one was too big for the fork lift here, so it had to be cut in half. We got the fun of doing that. With a generator and sawsall the job wasn't too bad.