AAHH here we are, waking up in paradise is awesome. Beautiful teal water i can see to the bottom under the boat whoo hoo! Caretta moved over behind us this morning inside the anchorage area designated by the park. SO today we go to a snorkeling point called Little Africa. We got all our snorkel gear and headed out to the site on the lee side of Loggerhead Cay about a mile or two from Fort Jefferson. We stopped and dropped our little dinghy anchor into the sandy spot between the coral heads. Dont want to damage the coral heads! Donned our mask (after putting a drop of johnsons baby shampoo on each side of lens)rinsing it out and putting on my fins (looking like that leopard video where he falls out of the tree while trying to hold on HAHAHA). AND im in! Surrounded by hundreds of fish and so many coral heads hiding spiny sea urchins grouper and other jewels in its many openings and holes. Being underwater is so peaceful and another world full of bright colorful fish and some sinister looking predators too! There is a small silver fish with a yellow stripe down its middle on both sides and a yellow tail,called a yellowtail snapper, they follow you around as if you need a tour guide and they know all the hot spots. Such cool little guys as well as the barracuda following me around like that 2 foot long fish is going to be able to eat me! Now his other 4 foot and longer family members make me a little nervous they stare you down and then POOF they are gone just like they disappeared into thin air. i call them sea ghosts,because they are there one minute and the next nowhere to be seen! The scary thing is they appear just as fast. I love to watch the trunkfish they are shaped like a triangle and swim upside down while picking at the sea floor or good tasting coral, bouncing up and down vertically lol. I saw black grouper,goliath grouper, tiger grouper, pufferfish, ( i am going to take a picture and post it of the fish name card). I saw way too many to list. After we snorkeled that site for several hours we decided to take a break and go eat lunch. On the way in we had picked a beach spot by a washed up tree trunk and left our chairs and lunch cooler there. After we ate the homemade fresh chicken salad i had made that morning on some cuban sweet bread and had tea with our sandwiches. I got in the water with my goggles and decided to snorkel the little narrow ledges and troughs in front of the beach. I heard someone yelling barracuda and looked back and there was a little 1.5 ft long barracuda following me as i was snorkeling along, hahaha. He stayed after me for a few minutes and then he decided i was boring, and poof he disappeared. Andrea Steve and Barry decided to come in too and we snorkeled for a while more. Steve got a great video of a baby nurse shark about 2 ft long and two lobster under a ledge. I also had a little gray and silver fish follow me around, i think he was a young snapper. We saw a lot of conch and tons of little silver minnows swimming in large schools with the sun glinting off of their bodies. We decided to explore the lighthouse and the house for the researchers on the island. The house is of course locked up tight, but we could see through the windows and we tried to knock a coconut off the tree outsidet the house. That was fun, looked like we were trying out for the island Olympics haha. After our snorkeling and exploring we got i our dinghys and headed back to the boat and took off through some rough seas bouncing and slamming into the waves like a rollercoaster but without the safety belt, but we made it with no issues. Like i said the winds don’t stop they just get heavy or light, so we try to go out on light wind days. We AHH the end to another exciting day at the Dry Tortugas!!

Moderate winds 2-3 wave height, decreased winds on lee side of Loggerhead Cay.

Anchorage holding great.