This is a picture of the Civil War-era section of Fort Zachary Taylor's west casemate and the current-era turista. A good portion of this fort was built over with the concrete structure of pre-WW I coast defense artillery emplacements where a single modern disappearing cannon replaced dozens of these old black powder muzzle loaders. One of the more interesting things about this fort is its amazing collection of civil war cannons and munitions still on the premises (excavated in 1968). My guess is that it was too difficult to remove the stuff due to the lack of roads to Key West until the early 1900s. Anyway, the builders of the newer sections of the fort ended up using many of the old cannons as armor by simply piling them up in front of the new disappearing cannon positions and pouring concrete over them - you can see old cannons protruding from the concrete where it has failed and spalled off.We took the Caffreys to dinner and a bit of shopping in the downtown district the other night and had a delightful time. Mary made her selections for the granddaughters' souvenir gifts - a major accomplishment.
Yesterday, while taking John Caffrey to Home Depot, I got two calls, one from FEDEX and one from West Marine informing me parts and mail were ready for pickup. I collected those on the way home and wish to report to Autrey and the world at large that our air horns are once again in full-throated operation. Yee-haw, toot, toot. The replacement lazarette fan will go in today. We went through all the mail Autrey forwarded last night and found no budget-breaking bills; so I told Mary we don't need to go home - picture that one flying like a lead pig.
For our afternoon and evening entertainment, we retraced our path on land eastward where we spent the best part of a breezy hour in the middle of the seven-mile bridge waiting for an accident to be cleared before we could get into Marathon. It was a pretty day which got cooler as it went making us wish we had a swaet shirt. That was the remnant of what blasted you folks in our home territory over the last few days.
On the way to Marathon we stopped in at the popular Bahia Honda State Park and walked on part of the old roadbed which had been built over the top of the original 1913 railroad bridge. The tidal current flowing out of Florida Bay into the Atlantic was nothing short of awsome.
Speaking of weather, we seem to have a window, and I am making plans for westward movement to the Dry Tortugas. By Friday night, predictions are for the winds to die off to a reasonable degree, and by Saturday, the seas will be much calmer than the current 6-8 feet. Even better, the predictions for winds on Wednesday are for light breezes and seas which will waft us landward as we make the long open-sea run from the Dry Tortugas to the mainland. We will be out of touch electronically, except for a satellite phone on the pier at Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Tortugas. We will make a call to Phillip and/or Jim (they are the people listed for the Coast Guard to call if our emergency satellite beacon is turned on by us) upon arrival and another upon departure. Once in sight of Naples, we will cancel our float plan with Phillip and Jim.
I will be looking at the weather predictions twice a day until we depart to ensure they are stabilized and no untoward weather phenomena are headed our way. One nice thing John pointed out to me yesterday is that the ferocious tidal currents through the Keys will be with us as we run through the Northwest Channel right by Key West on Saturday morning as we make our way to the Florida Bay side of the Keys. There, the shoals to the west of Key West extend for about two thirds of the 70 miles between Key West and the Dry Tortugas giving us sheltered water from the southerly breezes and seas for our trip out there.
