Key West-Land's End

Hemmingway Home has lots of cats . . . 47!

We are now in Key West, as far south in the U.S. as you can get. The weather here is warm and balmy, with gentle breezes. And it is still cool at night. Perfect.

Hemmingway, President Harry Truman and Jimmy Buffet frequented Key West, and we visited all the important spots from the Little White House, where Harry Truman spent 175 days of his presidency, to Buffet's Margueritaville.

The highlight of our stay here (we are camped at the Navy FamCamp), was our 70 mile catamaran ride over smooth, aqua water to Dry Tortugas National Park. It's just a little spit of land where the U.S. built Fort Jefferson in the mid 1800's. The fort's purpose was to protect the U.S. from pirates, rum runners and other invaders. If Cuban refugees are lucky enough to make land here, they are shipped off to Miami and processed thru immigration. Most, however, are intercepted at sea and sent back to Cuba, just 90 miles away.

The Dry Tortugas are just a few islets with no water and are the nesting ground for masked boobies, terns, frigate birds and three species of turtles. We didn't see any turtles on our snorkel around the fort. The brick, hexagon-shaped structure occupies about 95% of the Garden Key. Surprisingly, there were hawks, warblers, American redstarts and other migratory birds to view.

Today we leave for the Everglades and alligator territory.