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Today it was time for my birthday treat, a very expensive trip out to the Dry Tortugas National Park. It's a 2.5 hour trip each way starting out early, we had to be at the pier by 7am. As soon as we were under way they served breakfast which set us up for the day ahead. It's been a gorgeous day, sunny with few clouds and calm seas. We spent most of the outward trip on the bow watching out for loggerhead turtles which we saw quite a few of along with those acrobats of the ocean, the flying fish and a large number of jelly fish.
As soon as we docked we were off and heading for the snorkelling area with no idea of what was ahead. On the way to the beach we had to brake suddenly as a rather large hermit crab wandered into our path, oblivious to the damage us standing on him would cause.
We wasted no time getting our gear on and we were in the crystal clear water checking out the wonders nature had in store for us.
The Dry Tortugas was once a moted fort, much of that still remains as the central part of the island and all along the walls of the fort corals and fish have made their home. There are also a lot of old metal pier pylons which are almost totally encrusted with corals, massive sea fans most a vivid purple, zoa, lots of different brains most of which are massive and home to loads of multi coloured Christmas tree worms. There's isis corals, anthelia, porites, gorgonians, sponges and fire corals. The fish were many and varied, Atlantic blues, both the all yellow juveniles and the adults, bright damsels, the most gorgeous of which was the cocoa damsel which looks very like the colins angel, butterflyfish, parrots and wrasses of every colour. I got a hell of a fright when only a meter or so from shore a huge, I mean giant barracuda came straight for me lol it was at least a meter long. Pete heard me give a startled cry from a few meters away lol like the smaller ones it wasn't the least bit interested in us. There were squirrelfish and sgt majors (of course lol) big schools of baby snapper and misc smaller tangs a plenty. Most of the jellies were on the other side of the island but we did encounter a couple, they're large bell jellies with pretty coloured edges, pretty but I steered we'll clear. We happened across a smallish school of squid which were amazing.
Pete made a new friend, for a lot of the time we were in the water he was followed (stalked?) by a saucereye porgy. He thought for a minute he'd shaken it only to turn around and find himself in the middle of a school of them lol his stalker had grabbed all his mates to come and check out the strange sea creature lmao
We snorkelled for a couple of hours before heading back to the boat for lunch.
After lunch we did a self guided tour of the fort poking our noses into all we could from the bottom to the top before walking the perimeter along the wall of the moat. Inside the moat was quite shallow but still teeming with life, small fish seemed to be taking refuge their in their thousands, the water black with the shear number of tiny bodies. Also in the moat were a swarm of upside down jellies, a large conch mooching around, the odd brain and some garfish.
Before we knew it our four hours were up and we headed back to the boat for the return trip. The bar was open so we each grabbed a drink, as seems to be the norm it was way too strong so it remained the one and only we had. They have a ranger on the boat so we chatted to him for some time getting some fish ID'd. A little snoozing then ensued waking to find ourselves nearly back in Key West.
It really was an awesome trip and we absolutely recommend it to anyone heading this way.
Having a quiet drink by the pool as I type this and post thankyous for the birthday greetings from everyone, if i missed anyone, thanks!
The great outdoors has been far kinder to me today than it has in the last week or so. First snorkel day in the Caribbean I applied sunscreen then forgot to redo it when I went back in a second time resulting in tiger stripes of red a la last time in Thailand. That's all calmed down to a steady peel now.
The day out kayaking and swimming with the turtles saw me, per usual, not put sunscreen on my legs cos ""they never burn"" Well apparently they do if you're sitting in the hot sun in a kayak lmao. They seem to actually be going dark brown, no peeling so far, fingers crossed :-)
The last day down there in Barbados was awesome but there were sea lice which resulted in a multitude of angry "bites" all over me, itchy as all hell and only now starting to come right.
Then came the coup de grace; the drive down from Tampa we stopped at a bay for lunch, I put my glasses on the table while we ate and when I put them back on I spotted an ant on them, shook it off and didn't much think about it until a couple of hours later when my left eye started looking like something the elephant man would be proud to have! Today, two days later, the swelling has mostly gone down and I no longer look like I've had a stroke and the small bite is now visible at the corner of my eye.
So much for these things coming in sets of three lol
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