Florida Keys and Epic Dry Tortugas National Park Adventure

The morning was a little rough, I’m not going to lie about this. One eye, two eyes, then the “OMG, WHERE DID YOU GO LAST NIGHT” from Peggy.

Sister side note (ssn) – I had a momentary panic that she hadn’t come back the night before and I failed to notice. Big sister badge has been taken away.

Big Plans Today

If you missed yesterday, find it here Florida Keys – Day 2. This was our Dry Tortugas (it means turtle, I learned that at the Turtle Rescue Hospital) National Park excurion. This was high on Peggy’s gotta see, gotta do list. It is in the top 5 of the least visited National Parks in the country. It is an island 67 miles off Key West.

This was an early morning start for a vacation, but with big, big plans, we gotsta get on it. And where is my charger, anyway? We had to be at the airport by 7:30 am, and I’d pretend that is early, but we are 6 am’ers most days anyway. This was just a little slow go from the mango vodka over-indulgences the night before. But…this is where the epicness kicks in!

Sea Plane Adventure

Dry Tortugas National Park is only accessible by either a ferry, chartered boat or a seaplane. And ferries are for peasants, clearly. Actually, the deal was that the ferry is a 2-hour boat ride, you are there for 4 hours, then 2 hours back. That’s 8 hours out of our already too-short vacation and that didn’t seem like a good use of our time! The seaplane was spendy AF, but 45 min down there, 2 hours on the island and 45 min back is vacation time value! And my big sister is all about time management over funds management. She kicked in for her own birthday present and funded the flight. This turned out to be one of the bestest decisions ever.

We flew out at 8 am from Key West Seaplane Adventures with pilot John. There were only 10 people on the plane, and a copilot seat was available. “Does anyone want to sit up here?” John asked so innocently. And little did he or I know how fast Peggy could move in that little plane.

ssn – to be fair, nobody jumped on that offer AND it was my birthday so who am I to let it pass by! Co-piloting (not sure John (or the FAA) would consider me that, haha) was seriously the best thing I’ve ever done!

An amazing plane ride over the ocean, fabulous running commentary from our pilot, slight views of oceanic creatures.

ssn – we flew over shipwrecks, saw the Marquesas (reference Southern Cross, one of our top 5 songs EVER) and saw a hammerhead shark!

Dry Tortugas National Park

And in 45 short minutes, we land on the ocean and glide into The Dry Tortugas, which houses Fort Jefferson.

Fort Jefferson

This old army fort was fascinating as we got to stroll through the grounds, with only the ten of us from the seaplane. It was an amazing experience and I loved it way more than I thought I would when I was informed we were going to see an old army fort.

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Snorkeling at Dry Tortugas

We followed this up with snorkeling with the gear provided by the seaplane company. Now, your girl is a little terrified of open water, and being eaten by sharks, and I firmly believe that very soon we are going to see a horror movie of a small national park terrorized by a genetically enhanced shark (or sharktapus – yes, that’s a thing); but there I was, nonetheless, snorkeling for only the second time in my life. It was pretty fabulous, not another soul in sight (in Bali, our snorkeling consisted of being surrounded by 100
other tourists)

ssn – I think we have firmly established the shark-phobia by this point. LOL.

The Sea Plane to Dry Tortugas NP was the Best Decision Ever!

Just before 11 am we go change into dry clothes and are headed to the seaplane for our return flight, and then we see it: The Ferry. Packed to the gills with people looking like that large tourist man with the ice cream from Lilo and Stitch (Google it). And the island is descended upon by no less than 200 people. And this is why I can not recommend the seaplane option enough: we had 2 hours on this island with only the 10 of us and a handful of campers. With a grateful heart, we boarded the plane and hopped on back to Key West.

Back to Key West

Back and famished, we head back to our little AirBnB and default to Google for recommendations. With my desire to eat shrimp until I was sick of looking at it (spoiler alert: it didn’t happen), we ended up at DJ’s Clam Shack. Right on Duval street, it definitely fits the category of a “shack”. Mind blowingly good seafood. I ordered the fried shrimp and chips, Peggy got the clam strips, plus we had to split the lobster roll, because duh, lobster roll. It was all fresh, well cooked, and crazy good.

Hemingway’s House

It was hard to believe we started this day hungover. We cruised by Hemingway’s house, and the lighthouse, did a little strolling around the Duval Street area touristy parts, bought the kids some souvenirs, and hit up the local shops.

Mallory Square

By early evening, we hit up Mallory Square in preparation for sunset. We got there about an hour early so secure a good seat and just chilled at the water as local buskers and street artists kept us entertained. And then the show started. Oh my, now I get it, now I completely get the hype of Mallory Square. It was gorgeous, an incredible display of Mother Nature just showing off. I think my favorite part was that as the last inkling of the sun lowered over the horizon, people started cheering; and my heart grew
three sizes that day.

ssn – Mallory Square is everything quintessentially Key West. This cannot be said enough…People, island music, incredible sunsets and just plain palpable happiness.

Dinner in Key West

Even though we were heading for dinner, we stopped at this cute couple’s stand for fresh guacamole, made to order right there. DELICIOUS. We settled on sushi for dinner, and ended up at the sushi bar at MisoHappy. With a name like that, how do you not go there? I was so happy! The sushi chef and his crew did an amazing job; the entire staff so kind, and attentive. On our next trip, I am down for that Lobster Pad Thai, but on this meal we stuck with just the sushi rolls.

We headed back to our “home” to prepare for an early morning start the next day (with a purpose I will discuss in the Day 4 post). Sad that it was our last night in Key West but we crashed pretty hard, and happy.