The Dry Tortugas Adventures – Part 2 … “Things that cry ‘Help’ in the night”

The Dry Tortugas Adventures – Part 2 … “Things that cry ‘Help’ in the night”

Friday 26th February 2021

When I woke up at 6:40 am, Mike was already up and about.  We saw the sun rise out of the cloud-banks.  Somehow it took us until 9 am to set out for Garden Key (where Fort Jefferson is).  We studied the terns perched on the ruins of the south coal dock.  We identified Royal Terns, Sandwich Terns and a lone Roseate Tern.  Then we walked the moat wall in a clockwise direction as far as a ruined section where we turned back. We visited the Sooty Tern breeding area and observed Brown Noddy on the ruins of the north coal dock.  Then we walked as much of the moat wall as we could in the anti-clockwise direction.  A quick excursion to the top of the fort to take the view completed our morning outing.

On the way back to the boat, we had a conversation with the Eric, the skipper of the Island Packet “Ellen Ruth” anchored near us.  He was concerned that if he let out more chain he would be uncomfortably close to us and after our devastating experience with the dragging boat at Boca Grande, we were also a little too nervous for comfort.  The wind is going to intensify tonight through the weekend.  The forecast is for 20kts of wind from the east-southeast.  Some sources are predicting 25kts.  According to the guidebooks, the holding is not that great here.  This adds a layer of concern on top of everything else.

So we pulled up the anchor and moved over a bit.  From my position on the bow it didn’t seem like much but we are now further away from our neighbor and staggered to the side.  I must say that when the anchor came up it was thick with coral sand/mud.  I’d say we were pretty well hooked initially.  Here’s hoping the second set was as good.  Right now Mike is on the foredeck assembling our secondary anchor in case we start dragging later when the wind picks up.  

After dinner we decided to watch a film from the disk of films that Rod left with us. (Thank you so much, Rod!) When the film ended at about 10:30 pm, Mike thought he heard shouts outside.  Thinking that it was an argument, we initially paid little attention.  The shouting continued and eventually we could tell that some of the time the voice was calling - “help”.  Because the wind was forecast to build to 20 knots overnight, we had removed the engine from the dinghy so there wasn’t much we could do immediately.  We fired up the VHF radio and called the National Park Service.  Other boaters also came on the radio to suggest that the calls were coming from the southernmost vessel in the anchorage.  We were still trying to figure out whether we should try and get the engine on our dinghy when we saw a dinghy from his closest neighbor heading over to the boat in question. We gathered from radio calls that the captain who was single-handing was injured and had been in the water for some time.  He had managed to get into his dinghy but was in severe pain.  Because many boaters had put their dinghies up on the davits or on deck,  it was some time before a second boat came to assist and finally the NPS boat also showed up.  They took the injured boater to shore (still in his dinghy).  Later that night we heard a helicopter land and then take off again.  In the morning, we were told that the guy had injured his back but was okay and would be back in a few days.  

As you can imagine, it was another restful night for us—not!

Gloria

24 43.770 N, 82 42.695 W

Looking eastwards across the Sooty tern + Brown Noddy nesting colonies on Bush Key, with the old north dock relics on the far let and the Garden Key anchorage on the right

A panorama looking north east across the old north docks. The Jefferson channel that provided access to these docks is now listed as being closed due to shoaling, although we later saw a sail boat anchored just off here.

The south side of the fort with the Garden Key anchorage behind the old south dock relics. We snorkeled this area on a later day

Gloria on the north section of the moat wall

The moat wall with an open section to allow water to circulate. There are two other parts where the moat wall has been breached and two sections where the moat has been filled in by sand during hurricane Irma 2017

The interior of the fort which once contained barracks is now mostly grassland with a few trees. This is one remaining gun powder magazine intended to store powder for the fighting ships based in the anchorage. My understanding is the fort was primarily built to support and protect the naval operations running out of this natural harbor. 16 million bricks were used in the construction, which was carried out by army personnel, prisoners and slaves.

One of the two regular float planes taking off ... on this occasion right through the anchorage. It seemed to be banking to avoid the masts!

The seaplane backed up to the beach on the south side for passengers to get on / off

Sunrise over Long Key, a nesting sight for the magnificent Frigate Birds.

A panorama shot from the south east corner of the Fort. Again, apologies for the wind noise, but in this case much of the noise is the squawking of seabirds