Key West and Dry Tortugas Seaplane Trip

Hi everyone! I'm back on my blog after a couple of weeks of break. I now write my blog in English to meet the demand of my numerous (or not) readers from all around the world...

I didn't write for a long time because my parents were visiting me. And we had two great weekends. The first one was a round trip to Key West, starting on November 5.

The first good surprise was the hotel: unexpected private house in a tropical garden next to the sea, four swimming pools...really nice, as you can see.

We arrived there on the Friday night. We spent the Saturday morning strolling around Key West and its old houses. We also went to the Southernmost Point.

After the lunch, we drove to the Key West airport for the surprise I made to my parents: a seaplane trip to Dry Tortugas National Park.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good: a little cold, windy, cloudy... But we were still able to spot some sharks during the one-hour flight, as well as amazing landscapes.

Then we 'landed' near Fort Jefferson, a former military base and prison.

Dry Tortugas National Park is mainly an undersea park. There are two islands though. We can only go on Garden Key, the island with the fort, because Bush Key is a shelter of nesting birds.

After a very fun landing on the sea, we started the visit of Fort Jefferson. I would like to tell you a bit of history but I forgot the dates... The Navy firstly had built a fort because of the strategic location of the island, in order to control the waterway in the Gulf of Mexico. It had never been finished.

They had transformed it in a prison. The most famous prisoner is Dr Mudd. This physician was convicted of aid in the murder of Abraham Lincoln. He actually treated the real murderer. He was then released after an epidemic that killed most of the people on the island because he tried his best to save whoever could be saved...

You can see his cell below.

There were also a boat left here by the cuban illegal immigrants... Many of them try to cross the sea between Cuba and Florida on that kind of boats. Most of them never succeed...

Because of the weather we were not able to enjoy the best activity on this island: snorkeling, looking for one of the numerous sea turtles...

Anyway, it was a great afternoon.

We spent the evening walking in Downtown Key West, eating seafoods, drinking mojitos...

On the Sunday, we decided to visit some famous houses of Key West. The first one was the house or Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), author of The Old Man and the Sea.

Nice house, in a tropical garden. There is a museum inside, 60 cats (this guy loved cats)... very interesting visit of a very strange man's house.

Then we went to the Little White House, where Presidents Truman and Eisenhower used to spend their vacations. Not a lot to see there.

Then we kept walking in Key West, met some roosters that were waking in the streets as well, ate a Key lime pie (really good by the way), saw some sharks (in the aquarium!) before a quick lunch.

After that, we took the car to go back to Miami. We stopped on Bahia Honda Key to rest on the beach but the water was a little cold. We also saw a pelican injured by a shark probably and told the rangers to take care of it.

And it was time to leave! And to go back to work for me...