After unloading the van, I have to go park it in city parking up the block. We are warned that we cannot park overnight any place but there and if we park in the closest garage like some people do, they will tow our vehicle. With that fear of God put into me, I drive down to the city garage and leave the rest of the family with the gear to wait for the captain to come down and give them directions. The garage is pretty empty which I guess is expected. I get out to pay and there is another couple there paying so I wait. After they are done, I start trying to pay and it asks for my plate. Since it's the van and I don't drive it as often, I don't have it committed to memory so I exit the payment system, go back to the van to verify and come back. I enter all of the details, request two days parking and attempt to pay. I misunderstood the graphic on the direction of the card and insert it backwards. Whatever right? I'll just flip around and retry. No, not whatever. I can't get back to the card screen after it's been incorrectly read. So, I have to cancel the whole transaction and start over. Fine, I can't screw this up again right? Nope, I definitely can. I get through it all and insert the card the right way this time but it slips out of my hand when I start pulling it back so it doesn't get the even swipe it needs to read the data. Crap, start all over again. Third time's the charm and I finally manage to pay and put the slip on the dash. I start walking back to the dash and as I step out of the garage I get a call from Abby. Apparently they're being told that even though Gideon is a minor, we need to provide a photo ID for him. So, back to the van in the garage to get his passport. I finally arrive back at the dock and have missed all of the information that the captain relayed. I am just told that I need to bring the wagon thing and the cooler to the boat and I get a mini breakdown on the walk.
With that all set, now we wait for the check-in area to open. This doesn't open until 7AM so we have a long time to just chill. What never ceases to amaze and didn't disappoint this time was the number of people coming up to the area and seeing a ton of us milling about but they still go up and check the door like we are out here for our health. We get to watch this a lot before the doors open and we do the check in process. Of course when we check in they don't ask for Gideon's passport at all. We get all checked in and then go over to the other waiting area where Abigail and I decide that we maybe we'll go get a snack out of the vending machine. We walk over and decide what we might want before realizing that the drink vending machines on either side have card readers but the only snack one does not. So much for getting a snack. Eventually one of the crew members, Hollywood, comes out and introduces himself. He goes through a bunch of information and a break down of the boarding process before we are called to start boarding. Everyone piles on eventually and finds their seats for the ride. We get moving and get to hear a bit of the history of the other little islands around Key West as we head out. We break out of the keys and the ferry gets up to its full speed of 30 MPH and pretty much the whole of our crew is asleep. I don't know how long we go really because we are all in and out of sleep most of the time.
Hollywood notifies us in our stupor that we are approaching Fort Jefferson as you can see it on the horizon. He goes over some facts about the nearby keys as well and some about the wildlife and rules at the national park. I'm looking out the window at the many many birds including a ton of Magnificent Frigates. We have been told that we are to go upstairs on the ferry when the rest of the people unload to get some last minute information so that's where we go. We are given another quick run down on the rules and provided a trash bag. Since the ferry company is responsible for our trash but does not want to be responsible for everyone's trash, they provide specific trash bags. Okay, sounds good. We head down and there are two of the rangers waiting on the dock as well. They inform us that there aren$apos;t a lot of campers right now so we should have a good choice of spots. Also if there is a day use person that has setup shop on one of the benches for the camp site, just move their stuff to the side and claim it ourselves. So off we go to find a camp site. It's pretty hot here as well although not as bad as yesterday in Key West so we try to find a shady spot amongst some scrubby buttonwoods. We eventually find a spot but as predicted there's a bunch of day use people's stuff on the picnic table. We manage to get our stuff in next to theirs instead of ejecting them from the spot and start to setup the tents. As we are in the process, with Abby trying to setup the tent by herself mainly, the other family comes in and starts eating their lunch like nothing is happening. Whatever I guess. We continue to set it all setup and eventually the family packs their stuff up and moves to the picnic table in the next site. During this whole thing Abby and I have smacked our heads on one of the buttonwood branches that is protruding out towards the table. We have also noticed that there are some hermit crabs around that we were warned about because they tend to get into food if not properly sealed and stored. They are adorable and around the edge of the site primarily. We eventually get the whole site setup the way that we want with both sets of tents and decide to go for snorkelling.
We get all of the gear together, reapply sunscreen and head off to the beach which is right around the corner of the buttonwoods. After getting into the water and trying to get the gear setup correctly for us we start snorkelling along. We were told that the best snorkelling near the fort is along the wall or amongst the pylons of the old coaling stations. I don't feel particularly confident to go amongst the pylons and the rest of the family seems to agree so we decide to swim the length of the wall. We start out like normal, not seeing much. But as you get used to doing it and what you are looking at, more and more becomes visible. We see all sorts of colorful fish, some brain coral and fan corals and when one of us has to come up for a break or to clean off our mask, the bubble butts of the rest of the family that this particular flotation device creates. I had a strap that was to loop around under you and on each of us it rode right up and made a very visible dividing line. After swimming one length of the wall we had the choice of getting out and walking around or swimming back. We decided to swim back and were welcomed with views of items we managed to miss the last time. This time around though we are swimming against the current and man is it a lot more work. The longer wall felt like it took an eternity to get across and I kept getting pushed into the wall.
After completing snorkelling we decide to head back to the camp for some food. As much as I remember from growing up down here, I forget how hot the sand can get in the midday sun. The suggestion was made to not put on our water shoes and just walk back to the camp since it was so close. After getting out of the sugary sand and into the more packed soil, I remembered this pretty quickly. The soil was so hot and by the time I had finished rushing into our site, I would have sworn that I burned the bottoms of my feet. We spread around some food and snacks and rest up a little bit in general, breaking into our waters that we had brought with us. While eating we start to realize that there are so many more hermit crabs than we thought. They are crawling through the camp, some of them are crawling up the buttonwoods. Abigail and Court decide to take a reading break in the tent but they end up taking a nap instead. During this time Gideon and I chat a bit and I read. We wait out the departure of the ferry which will take with them about 170 of the people here today. I eventually head to the tent to take a nap as well during which time Gideon takes a nap on the bench of the picnic table. It feels very summer camp vibes.
When most of the people are gone, we head to the fort to walk around a bit for the historical part of the trip. We start off with the visitor center which is still open after everyone is gone to get a little bit of AC to cool off a little bit and see what historical items are here. We then start walking around the fort itself. We get to see a lot of the casements and ruins of the other buildings that were here. Apparently this is also one of the places that Dr Mudd was serving out his sentence for being a co-conspirator in the assassination of Lincoln. Also apparently at its peak, this fort held around 2000 soldiers, prisoners and their families. I cannot imagine that many people here on the island considering how frustrating the roughly 200 were. There are some really nice views from the fort and a lot of architecturally interesting items to see.
We head back to camp to wait out the sunset that we plan to watch from the outer wall and relax a bit more. We are starting to see some of the sunburns come out on us. Gideon looks like he's does some kind of abstract zigzag pattern on the back of his legs and Abby is going for the Rothko look of a four separate squares of varying degrees of red. It is during this time that we notice we can actually hear the hermit crabs moving in the leaves around the camp site and start noticing some rather large ones, like nearly fist sized, along with some really small ones. We also get to see a lot of anoles around which was fun. At one point while waiting it out, Gideon gets up to go do something and smacks his head something serious on the same branch that Abby and I hit earlier. Like so hard that it showers leaves down on us. The forecast for tomorrow was isolated rain at 8AM so I suggested we put up the rain flies on the tents. We eventually get to the point that it's about time to head out to the wall for sunset. As we get to the wall we realize we may have waited a bit too long and have to hurry along to get to the point on the wall to take pictures.
After getting back to the camp and packing stuff away for the night, we all decide to just retire for the night. I'm not exactly tired and I've heard from everyone that tonight is the night that they are planning on rushing to sleep before I start snoring so I read for a while. We set an alarm for 1AM to make sure that we get a chance to do some star gazing as the light pollution here is essentially zero. Sleeping is a bit of a struggle because we put the rain flies on so the ventalation in the tent is now reduced. I also don't want to leave the tent door open because of the hermit crabs. I should be used to camping in this heat as I used to do it all of the time but I will admit to feeling the sweat running down my back as I rested. Eventually Court wakes me up to head out and look at the stars. We are not let down. The number of stars that are visible is crazy and Gideon even catches a shooting star from one of the two possible meteor showers happening. The Milky Way is only faintly visible due to the fact that we are nearly at a half moon and the amount of light that it is giving off is crazy. Absolutely beautiful. We all head back to the tent to sleep off the rest of the night.
Tomorrow, Ferry back from Dry Tortugas and on to Homestead!