Dry Tortugas Day 7 (Loggerhead Key)

This was the day I had been waiting for. Loggerhead Key is known for being some of the best snorkeling around with crystal clear water, lots of fish in a protected national park, shipwrecks and did I mention crystal clear water? We ate a light breakfast, loaded up the dive gear and went over to Tom's boat to see if he wanted to join us. Tom was actually almost ready to go himself and was going to see if we wanted to join him, perfect timing. We started the almost 3 mile dinghy ride to Loggerhead. 

Loggerhead Key is an island inside the Dry Tortugas National Park. It has the Loggerhead lighthouse which was built in 1825, now modified with solar power and a massive battery bank to light the dangers of the reef. Loggerhead is also home to a couple shallow water wrecks. One of those wrecks is the Norwegian ship "Avanti" which sank January 22nd 1907 on it's way to Uruguay. The island is uninhabited but has quarters for research staff that occasionally occupy the island when conducting research. We were all excited and this was something we had all been looking forward to as we motored slowly with heightened anticipation as the small island got bigger and bigger. 

We landed on the south beach and made our way on foot to the other side of the island. We went to the base of the lighthouse and toured a little of the outside area. We arrived on the other side and sat down in the pure white sand, just taking a moment to enjoy the view.

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Overall we spent around 4 hours at Loggerhead before making our way back, I could have spent days on that island alone. The wind had been whipping every day and it was sending decent size chop onto the beach where we had beached our dinghy. Getting the boats pushed against that and motors running required a little effort, but first we gave Tom a good shove and sent him on his way. Jess and the kids were in the boat and I got them about chest deep before pulling a what could only be described as a beached whale impersonation as I slid into the dinghy, dropped the motor and got us going. About halfway back Tom's motor died and we pulled alongside to see what was wrong, we ended up towing him for a few minutes before he got it sorted out. Drifting in a dinghy is scary, it's a long way to Mexico!

We ended up back at the boat for a late lunch and nap from all the swimming and sun. We wanted an evening in Fort Jefferson to take pictures of the boat with the sun setting.