A NOTE TO OUR READERS:
"A Little Piece of America" is from the November 2007 issue of Southern Living.
Because prices, dates, and other specifics are subject to change, please check all
information to make sure it's still current before making your travel plans.
You might say that the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson sit at the
end of the road in the continental U.S. Except there isn't any road.
That's why I'm standing on the tarmac at the Key West International
Airport, waiting to catch a seaplane.
Even though two high-speed passenger ferries make daily crossings to
Dry Tortugas National Park, I want to go by air. It sounds like a fun
adventure.
At a small office near the main terminal, Peter Green, who manages
Seaplanes of Key West, issues passengers snorkeling gear and small
coolers with water and soft drinks. He explains the ground rules for a
day trip to the nation's most remote national park. Basically, you have
to bring everything with you, including lunch. There are no
concessions—not even drinking water.
Flying With Fred
Instead of boarding passes, seaplane
passengers get plastic cards with background information about the
pilots. I'm with Fred Cabanas, a stocky, easygoing aviator and fourth
generation Conch, born and raised in Key West. He looks as if he
parachuted right out of a Hemingway novel. One of the instructions on
his card tells passengers, "Please do not ask him to fly upside down."
Fred, who learned to fly when he was 16, ranks as one of the nation's
top aerobatic pilots. When he isn't flying seaplanes, he regularly
headlines air shows in his Pitts Special S-2C. His daughter pilots a
Navy fighter on a carrier in the Persian Gulf.
In the Air
Fred races the single-engine seaplane down the
runway, and we lift off, swooping past Key West and out over the
aquamarine waters. I'm aboard with a couple from Austria and their
14-year-old daughter, who plan to spend their day snorkeling the coral
reef around Fort Jefferson.
Flying low over the clear water makes me feel as if I'm looking down on
a giant aquarium. I watch a pod of dolphins play and see dozens of sea
turtles rise to the surface and descend. Ponce de León discovered the
Tortugas in 1513 and named the string of islands for the abundant
turtles his men loaded aboard their ship for food.
