Painted Bunting

It is just a dirty, tattered piece of cloth, right?
We attended a ceremony today where a “Northerner” returned the flag that was surrendered to his great grandfather when the Union took over Fort McAllister at Savannah 150 years ago. Confederate re-enactment soldiers from across Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia stood to represent the men of the Emmett Rifles who relinquished that flag so long ago. A group of them with bass, guitar, harmonica, and drums played music and sang, reminiscent of the encampments, both Union and Confederate, between battles. We flinched at the report as they fired muskets and canon. It brought a bit of history to life for a few hours.

 Castillo De Marcos – St Augustine
Canon Firing

Under the heading of “don’t believe everything you read”.
We picked a Passport America Campground from the membership guide as we often have, called for a reservation and headed that way. It’s listed to have all the regular amenities, laundry, hot showers, pool, WiFi, rec room, cafe……. My Gosh, you ought to see this place! It is an overgrown field with a few power poles in it to hook up to electric. There are ramshackle remains of bath house, a disconnected hot tub, and a bunch of other buildings and goats out grazing in the high grass. A bare-chested 50 something fellow with flowing blond hair rushes over to greet us. I am sure he was hoping to catch us quick before we could have second thoughts. It has NO amenities, actually not even creature comforts. Serious misrepresentation I am afraid. Yet, we stayed. We really only need a flat spot to park and it makes for a fun story.

Sunset @ Key West

We made ours a two day stay by tent camping out there one night. You would think that sand would be soft to sleep on. Not exactly. It was just one night so no big deal but it was really pretty lumpy and hard.
A high speed catamaran bounced us out some 70 miles to Dry Tortugas National park in winds and 5 foot seas. We had taken our Dramamine, no problems for us.

There is a Fort on the island, it even has a moat around it. Seems a little overkill for a Fort that already has ocean all around it! We saw some odd birds; frigate birds, boobies, noddies and sooty terns. All of them breed on the neighboring unpopulated/undeveloped islands.
Snorkeling was pretty good. We found an area scattered with buttons or small zones of coral. It is amazing the little micro communities that develop in even a little patch of coral.
The constellations seemed to pop out of the sky
The Tortugas are a great place for dark night sky. The stars were beautiful and the milky way shown bright. It was black dark except for stray light from boats mored off-shore. It is well worth another visit. Maybe with a kayak next time…and we will hope that the seas will cooperate. I’d dump one for sure in 5 foot waves.

Here in the flat Florida Everglades Rock Reef Pass is at 3 feet elevation. It seems like nothing when we think of the Rocky Mountain passes we crossed but this little ridge has huge affect on the flow of water and the life that this place supports. One more little amazing tidbit about this unique place.

Swamp Buggy RacingTour de FranceSmokin on the Sound – Powerboat RacesReef Swim Race

Kentucky DerbyIronmanAmericas Cup