Snorkeling Dry Tortugas National ParkAlthough not fantastic, snorkeling Dry Tortugas National Park is the best available from Key West, and it is pretty darn good! It is actually an entire day of fun, and well worth the trip and expense. The park is located a good 70 miles west of Key West across open ocean, and being this remote it can only be accessed by ferry, seaplane or private boat. Once you get out there you are actually snorkeling Fort Jefferson. In fact you used to snorkel Fort Jefferson National Monument before the area was expanded to include seven islands and redesignated Dry Tortugas National Park.
Along with the fun of snorkeling Dry Tortugas National Park, Fort Jefferson is a place of history for sure. Besides the amazing marine life and birds, the fort is really very interesting to walk around in. Ponce de Leon first named this area Las Tortugas. Tortugas means turtle (there used to be a ton of them here). But the name Dry was added not long afterward because of the lack of fresh water. The fort itself was built in the 1800s to protect the waters into Florida but quickly became obsolete. Still, at one point there were over 1000 troops stationed on this tiny 16 acre plot of land.Later the fort became well known as a prison, once holding Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor of John Wilkes Booth. The picture out the window on the right is from Mudd's cell. The fort was abandoned in the late 1800s and was taken up by pirates at times.
We had heard that snorkeling Dry Tortugas was pretty good, and we are glad we gave it a try. It is a great thing to do with a day in Key West. The boat trip was a pleasure and we had very calm seas both directions. The snorkeling waters are a perfect 5 to 12 feet deep and very warm. We spent about two hours straight having fun in the water.
Where to Snorkel There are four distinct snorkeling Dry Tortugas areas that are worth checking out. See our snorkeling map below.
The first snorkeling Dry Tortugas area that is easiest to find and explore is to snorkel the outside of the moat wall (there is no snorkeling in the moat).
You enter the water from a wonderful white sand beach on the left side of the fort (from the ferry docks). On our map that is at the beginning of the lower yellow arrow, and the snorkel area is circled in red between the yellow arrows alongside the fort.
You follow the moat wall along and the best snorkeling is along the flat section circled on the map below. All along up against the moat wall there are a good number of small but healthy corals, both hard and soft, and some sponges. 
There are also a nice variety of small fish, mostly immature. There were also a wonderful variety of colors of Christmas tree worms. Maybe the best thing about snorkeling along the wall is actually that it is all small and a little spartan. It makes you focus on each small thing as it comes along and you check out smaller fish than you would normally pay attention to in a bigger snorkeling area.
Another nice thing is that if you have family who don't snorkel they can walk along the moat wall right beside you as you swim along.
The second Dry Tortugas snorkeling spot that offers much better snorkeling than the moat, are a series of four to six small patch reefs that are very healthy in shallow water. There are tons of fish around these patch reefs, from large to small. In fact Nicole saw the biggest Tarpon she had ever seen, and it gave her a little startle.
The guides will tell you to swim 50 to 80 yards straight out from the fort to find them. But if you are like us, it is pretty hard to know what 50 to 80 yards is in the water, and it can be kind of daunting to just swim out that far trying to find some small reef structures. But we did find them, and it was well worth it. And once we found them we figured out the best way for you to find them with ease.
Here is the sure way to find the patch reefs. Look at the map on the right. See the yellow arrows. Notice they are lined up perfectly with the two walls of the fort? Start swimming out from either side, keeping yourself inline with one of those walls. Once you get out and start seeing down the line of the other wall (the other yellow arrow), you will be at the reef. Once there, the patch reefs run parallel to the fort wall (you can see the little dark dots in the picture circled in red). We like to swim along the moat wall until we reach the north wall (top yellow arrow), then we swim out to the patch reefs and follow them back to the south. Then we like to swim back towards the beach and go to the next spot described below.
See many more underwater pictures from this area here. The third Dry Tortugas snorkeling area is at the circled section at the bottom of our map. This is an area of pilings that used to support a wharf. Now they are just poles in the water. This is actually a pretty good snorkeling area. You have to be careful not to get hurt on the old rusty metal, but there are tons of fish and nice corals growing on the pillars.
View more underwater pictures from this area here. The fourth snorkeling Dry Tortugas spot (the upper right hand circled area on our map) is the actually the same as the third, just in another area. It is another set of old wharf pilings and it is worth checking out if you have time. There is a fifth good snorkeling Dry Tortugas area that is often closed. It is across the bay from the ferry to the little island (to the right on our map). It was closed when we were there because of nesting Sooty Terns. If you are interested in snorkeling there ask the ferry guides or a park ranger. There it is. A great day. I even won a free ferry trip back to the Dry Tortugas in a raffle on the trip back. Make sure and bring a book if you come by ferry, because it does take a couple of hours each way. There are two ferries that make this trip, the Yankee Freedom Ferry
and the Sunny Days Fast Cat. We have heard that the government was going to limit access to only one boat company, but it hasn't happened. We think the Yankee Freedom is the better choice. You can walk around outside on the Yankee Freedom, and it is a much heavier boat. That is good in case of big seas. (Check out other reviews of the Yankee Freedom ferry at TripAdvisor. Here are some reviews of Sunny Days on TripAdvisor too.) And flights by seaplane went away for awhile but are back again, although it is pretty expensive. Key West Seaplane Adventures is your only current option to fly to the Dry Tortugas.
Here is a link to the Dry Tortugas National Site Page. Safety Note: If you snorkel everything we did at the fort, it is a ton of swimming, and you must be up to it. I had to swim out and rescue a drowning snorkeler on this trip at Fort Jefferson. And it wasn't because Fort Jefferson is more dangerous than any other area for snorkeling. It was because that person did not know some basic snorkeling skills. Read more about it here and our tips about being safe snorkeling. Don't miss the two extra underwater pictures from the Dry Tortugas here and here.
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