Seaplane adventure and touring Key West

Earlier in the week, Cindy and I looked into a seaplane adventure trip to the Dry Tortugas. They had a couple seats still available on the Wednesday morning flight, so we booked em!

Woke up at 6am to make the hour drive down to Key West as check-in started at 7:30am for the 8am departure. First time we had to set an alarm in a few months..

Rise and shine for a morning flight

Boarded the plane with 8 others, which each gave us a window seat for the spectacular views during the trip.

A safe beach arrival at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas

A mustached man on the loose at the fort

What an amazing trip! Could’ve had better conditions for snorkeling, but other than that we both really enjoyed the sea plane adventure.

Dry Tortugas Sea Plane from Chris Schaul on Vimeo.

Safely landed back in Key West around noon and both were both parched and hungry. Key West has numerous establishments to cure both of those ailments. Drove from the airport to a street parking location closer to Duval Street. Walked a few blocks along Duval to Caroline’s Cafe and pulled up a couple stools at the bar. Fantasy Fest is happening all this week in Key West, so there’s plenty of people watching entertainment. Unsure that I’ve ever seen so many bare chested women at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Talked with some nice older folks down for the festivities while enjoying a couple cold ones and our tasty shrimp and mahi lunches. Wrapped up lunch and continued our stroll down to the waterfront. The cruise liner was about to leave port, so we relaxed on a shady bench to watch them undock and u-turn an enormous ship.

Continued our afternoon stroll and headed towards the Hemingway House, another locale we had always wanted to visit. Key West is really nice once you get away from the touristy areas near Mallory Square and Duval Street. Took the Hemingway House guided tour and enjoyed walking around the grounds and meeting some of their 45 6-toed cats. By this point we’re both exhausted with legs still recovering from Tuesday’s activities, so we walked back to the truck and got back on the road to head home.

Cindy met most of the cats living at the Hemingway House

A classic example of Key West architecture