The Dry Tortugas. Beachcombing, snorkeling and finding seaglass!

well hi there Beach friends this is Fort Jefferson this is part of the Dry Tortugas National Park now my YouTube channel is about beach combing it's not about history so even though we're at this really cool place I'm going to be going beach combing I'm going to see what all is out there they have snorkeling equipment so I'll be doing that too and I'm going to show you what you might find if you come on a trip like this except for this Turtle you probably won't get to see a turtle like we are now this is a national park you're not allowed to remove anything you find but I managed to still find something that I was able to take home so this is Fort Jefferson and this is where we're going to spend a little bit of time here so if you are ready to see what all is out there let's check out Fort [Applause] [Music] Jefferson [Music] [Music] so we took the Yankee Freedom Ferry um there's a couple different ways you can go by C plane or Ferry we chose the cheaper option of the $220 per ticket uh Yankee Freedom Ferry and look if you want to go there it is what it is they do provide you a delicious Bagel breakfast and they do give you a lunch and they also do give you snorkel equipment that's the waiver that you have to sign so we left Key West with a rainbow in the skies and showed up at Fort Jefferson about 3 hours later it depends your um travel time will depend on what the weather is like and I'm excited about seeing all that Island I want to go see what it all is out there so I am a tourist and all and I'm going to look around a little bit that's where I'm going to pick up my snorkel equipment so I'm kind of making notes here and so we did walk around this building a little while it is kind of cool it is the largest masonry structure in the Americas no you are not allowed to snorkel in the moat so we will not be going in there however someone who used to live here many many years ago did catch a shark and kind of had it in the boat for a little while so if you did come here there's lots of history that you can learn about but that is not what we're going to concentrate on today so again I couldn't help myself it is a pretty remarkable structure my husband was very interested in it he used he knows about masonry and building and all that kind of stuff and once we walked around I was really itching to get down there and out there and see what all we could see now we're obviously on top of the fort the view is amazing and there is a moat that goes almost entirely around the um actual Fort now the people on the ferry will give you all the information you need to enjoy your time here if there's history program is there anything else you want to learn about as well as where to pick up your snorkel equipment so we've already explored the building at this point I want to kind of take a look at this wall at this moat I guess plus it's just beautiful out here I feel bad for anyone who took the trip out here and didn't get a good weather day sea fans I've never seen live sea fans out in the wild like that so that is pretty cool and oh this is just gorgeous so I'm having a pretty good time so far now I will tell you it was hot like insanely hot like over 100 degre so wherever you are right now at the time I filmed this I was really really hot there's a critter and is that going to deter me from snorkeling nope not at all but before I go SN snorkeling I do want to see what is actually on the beach here is a limpet very cool now I know very excited to go find things I'm actually not allowed to keep anything this is a national park and so any of the seashells or any this cool stuff I find like I think that's a comb Bittersweet that is a red Brown Arc so I'm pretty excited not allowed to keep it red Brown Ark I got to look at it film it a turkey wing oh cool can't keep it it's a national park so everything I find today I have to leave behind but for me it's really about the hunt not about keeping it necessarily what is I don't know what that is but you know just kind of hunting looking around seeing Oh what is here oh now this was exciting this is an Atlantic strawberry cockle I've never held one before I've never found one I've never held one that to me is I think more of an East Coast shell I live on the Southwest coast of Florida never found one before super duper cool again and I'm okay with not being able to keep it that's fine I'll find a keeper one day that is a frond oyster or a piece of a frond oyster look at that cool shell I don't know is that a tiger Lucine I'm guessing that's what I think it is I've never found one before oh it's so neat that's okay I can't keep it I'm to that's totally fine I just want to see what's here I think that's another one another tiger Lucine very oh I love the little the detail on that shell is just beautiful is that maybe like a wing of a hawk Wing that's another shell I've never found before kind of neat so just a piece of clue I don't know what it is piece of seashell but again we're going to leave that here okay I think that's a piece of a jewel box or a type of jewelbox yeah it's in terrible shape maybe a leafy yeah it's hard to say there are a bunch of different types of corate um jewelbox that's another turkey wing or zigzag Arc or zebra Arc however you'd like to call that and I I think that's another one of those tiger Lucin if it is indeed a tiger Lucine hey if you happen to know leave me a comment below I'd appreciate that so this I think is a comb Bittersweet not surprised and so for me I get it's I'm finding more things that I would find on the East Coast other than that turkey wing well you can find the turkey wing on the east coast and look at this it's not really sand it's really kind of just crushed Coral oh it's so different so I'm having I know I'm not to keep anything but I'm I'm still having fun so here's a leafy Jewel box again not in great shape kind of cool though that's a leafy jewelbox or at least that's what I think it is definitely a jewelbox I'm leaning toward leafy a the coral yeah there is tons and tons of coral here where we are we're actually right at the edge of the Florida Reef so not surprising there would be so much Coral here yeah we usually get the thin fingered Coral down in Southwest Florida but this is all sorts of different stuff I am not familiar with peace and turkey wing I am familiar with that oh a so that's a Mossy Arc that is so cool I mean it literally looks like a turkey wing and a red Brown Arc had a baby and that would make a Mossy Ark that is really cool can't take take it though that's all right that's fine another little piece of something something all right because again it's the hunt I do I do like the hunt what else are we going to find all right so this is only a tiny little strip and I said earlier it is hot I think it's time we get in the water there we go that's much better now I will just want to preface this with I don't wear fins because I get cramps in my feet so I don't have any fins on and I'm carrying a camera in one hand so I can kind of see I definitely don't want to bump into any soft corals or anything so I'm trying to be careful and I'm just kind of having a little bit of trouble navigating CU I have no fins and I've got one hand that I'm kind of swimming with so here I did see that soft Coral oh what else all right some more yeah I see some in the back there lots and lots of fish and I do just hang in there for a second because there is a really cool piece of coral this big white thing and then you can see other soft Coral kind of growing to the left of it so I'm struggling to get the shot I apologize oh yeah isn't that beautiful so we're just going to pause here because then you can really get a look at it oh it's beautiful I think it's brain coral I don't actually know but holy cow is it pretty and I just I didn't want to touch it I was being very careful I wanted to get close enough to see it but with my lack of really good navigation skills I just didn't want to knock in into anything I didn't want to hurt anything there's some more Coral some more soft Coral oh it's so cool I love snorkeling so I got out for a sec just to check on the husband he is sitting in at the water's edge I don't blame him because like I said it's hot and we're going to check out those shells a little bit later I want to take a better look at them and this camera is not conducive for that so we'll just look at those at the end of the video oh one of my sergeant major yeah I learned a new fish the sergeant major is that fish with a little bit yellow on it I thought that was super neat couple more fish there's our friend the sergeant major again and then this trip also made me think I I really want to go snorkeling on the Florida Reef we'll see we'll see if I'll ever get there but just once I was in the water and I started seeing all this thing like the soft Coral so something like um a fronded oyster might attach itself to something like that and then they both would filter feed and they're animals I mean they're very very rudimentary but Coral they're animals go figure look at that seaan isn't it beautiful so that too is a type of coral a soft coral and it is an animal and it's wild and so at this point I'm floating I think I probably could have put my feet down but I was just afraid of of injuring anything so I'm doing the best I can at navigating I think I'm Al more sea fans ah so this well you can see the brick wall so I'm kind of along the wall of that moat at this point I'm going to go find that Tarpon not really but another sea fan it's so I love snorkling it's so calming here we go I was pretty happy to see a queen conch it's really really beat up like it barely has all its bits and pieces but still cool so that's a queen conch and there's also a crab in there there's a crab that's kind of navigating from the top of the shell as I'm checking out to the bottom of the shell all right buddy not to worry I'm not allowed to keep it anyway so so you and the queen conk hey maybe that other piece of the shell I found was part of a queen conk I don't know I don't get to find them so I'm just not sure another Sea Fan beautiful and there tons of coral tons and tons of coral here's a little bit of turtle grass it's kind of skim over that I don't want to put my feet down because I don't know what's in there I don't want to disturb a crab or I don't know something so I'm just kind of Gliding Over the turtle grass okay and I did find a couple of moon snails so those again this camera isn't great for close-up shots so we'll take a look at that in a little bit we'll take another look at those Moon snails so I'd kind of done as much as I could as far as snorkeling I'd already done some beach combing and I came over to this other sliver because as it turns out a huge part of the park was closed closed so this is where the ferry comes in this is where we walked in and we kind of took a peek at the moat and then once you zoom out you can kind of see there really was a lot of area that you could explore but it was closed there was um Birds nesting and so I was not able to beach comb any of that but I asked one of the mates if there was anything else I can kind of look for and he did say over here there's some seag glass so I made my way over there and sure enough there was SE glass so now I'm super excited oh my gosh finally something I can collect and frankly I can keep it and we'll talk about that in just a second so now I'm like Oh yay seal glass now the condition of the Seaglass I don't really care at this point I seag glass I'm just going to pick it up because I figure H if it's not you know seag glass if it isn't frosted I'm at least taking garbage off of the island off out of the sea out of the national park that little shell is perfect it's a perfect little turkey wing that can't come but this piece of glass can so once I got home I reached out to leave no Trace now leave no Trace has a mission statement of empowering people to be the solution to conservation so they are an organization that helps the public get involved and keep our Parks clean because no matter where or why you go outside it's yours to protect it's your nature so I called them up and they did inform me I tried to find the information myself like waste in national parks and I just wanted to air on the side of caution so I called them and they said sure take glass go for it because each year over 100 million pounds of waste are generated in National Parks through a variety of means including park operations by Park visitors and other sources so they're an organization that helps the public get involved to keep our national parks clean big fan of that mission so thank you for the help and if you would like to read more or get involved leave no Trace can be found at lmt.org or they do have a YouTube channel so once you've watched every single one of my videos by all means head on over to their channel so we were collecting glass and now that we know it is fine now that I cannot keep any of the shelves anything organic no Sticks no rocks no nothing the glass though the glass I can keep so I'm just checking out all the seashells and everything but kind of excited that I'm hunting for something and cleaning up as I'm doing it so finally something for me to hunt now there I was first concentrating on the green every now and then I'd find a piece of white oh dear and there's so many people walking around Barefoot so yeah all the glass that I found I picked up see white green and and there was tons of it now I didn't Beach come over here yet I guess I would have eventually I'm glad though that they said um or that I asked that there was something to hunt for I can look for this beach glass so the predominant colors here were indeed the white the green and the brown that's a nice white one that one's like a Half Baked one so some of it was legit some of it was not so much that's a pretty nice chunk got a little something on it another piece of green those are pretty frosted those are pretty good pieces of seal glass oh look at that yeah that is a big old chunk and yeah I mean if it doesn't have sharp edges that makes it seag glass right let's just say I know a lot more about seashells than I do about sea glass oh this was such a cool piece of coral but not allowed to keep it y anything organic but I still like you know taking pictures of it so that's what I was able to take but was able to take that seag glass legitimately and I'm just putting it in my pockets I'm wearing like swim trunks and I'm just loading it my pockets I didn't bring a shell bag I wasn't expecting to really collect anything honestly look at all and so this is like all Coral I don't I guess that red stuff is like pieces of brick masonry maybe so what I did notice once I did my first sweep I kind of picked up all the brown and green it was easier to see I noticed whoa there's tons of white here and I just didn't see it so once I said okay brain look for the white then I kind of saw all the weight there's tons of it and it was fun because I had already kind of collected here obviously missed some of that green but the white I definitely missed a lot of it so I was able to go back again and grab a bunch of white so made my brain happy that I got to hunt for something so I did come home with lots and lots of seag glass and it was fun telling people I didn't want to kind of ruin the surprise that I was a there I did find something I was able to collect wasn't seashells or Coral it was garbage and that's okay it really was fun so we'll take a look at that again at the end of the video we'll see if there's any other interesting pieces in there but I'm kind of done with the seal glass now I did find this other shell I think maybe a rough file shell it's not in great shape so I can't and plus I've never found one before ever but still oh that was cool now you can take a sea plane here we took the ferry and and I didn't get to kind of beach comb this little area here so I wanted to at least check CU what if what if there was something I could at least hold in my hand cuz it is kind of fun even just to hold the shells in my hand another comb bitter Suite so the seag glass was fun I don't have to keep any of that and now I'm ready let's take a look at some of those other shells we had found earlier I found a nice Shady spot cuz I'm telling you it was so hot hot so I found a shell and then these are Little Treasures we're going to kind of take a look at we'll start with these little Moon snails now I do think those are God nauticas I could be wrong by all means leave a comment if you think otherwise but I just think that they are small and colorless they were the exact right shape the little bit of color is there so I do think that those are colorful moon snails this total mystery not a clue I wouldn't even know where to start so I wouldn't even guess what a baby hawkwing I got nothing cool little gastropod though this I've been looking for one that's a stocky serth I've never found one so the hubby found one I was super excited to see it yay you know I got to see it for real hold it in my hand and then I don't get to keep it but again that is okay and two little cones M I don't know what they are now if I had to guess this one I'm going to say maybe a Bermuda cone I don't know cuz there's no color on it so I'm not really sure is it supposed to be white neat little specimen though that was really cool and a button shell itty bitty yeah little tiny thing so that is a little tiny button shell and then there were other little thing that looks maybe a s I don't know I don't know what that is it's kind of cool something that I don't find in Southwest Florida regularly I will tell you that so that is kind of cool and there were some other little familiar shells they're like a marginella so that is a marginella kind of cool itty bitty they're only supposed to be that big they're itty bitty shells those marginella shells and then this one also another little marginella kind of neat and now that I still think that too is also just a very small colorful moon snail I don't think it's like a milk moon snail or any of the other types I think I'm out of my element down here that's for sure and then I think that is a piece of a stocky carth or or baby jonia and then we got this little tiny I can't really see much of anything I don't know what that is and then these other little gastropods neat little things I would have liked to have taken them home and it was tempting sure who's going to know I can just sneak in my bathing suit but I just didn't feel right about it plus I wanted to honestly tell you all I took nothing I didn't even take a grain of coral so it was hard but it's the right thing to do don't take seashells from National Parks so I quickly ran away well actually I tried to get air conditioning so you can ride outside or inside on the boat and that is all closed that is all the area that was closed due to the bird nesting so if you want to do a trip like this maybe check out the time of year and don't go when the birds are nesting you'll have way more Beach to go beach combing now I was very lucky that the captain that we had had a sharp eye because she spied this little sea turtle now we think it's a hawk Bill sea turtle what a little cutie now did you know that there's only seven types of sea turtles crazy right so this little sea turtle is going to make its way or the um the captain is actually going to drop drop it off at the sea turtle Hospital over on Marathon oh dear oh it's so cute so yeah I'm just going to enjoy the time I can it was awesome so the sea turtle Hospital on Marathon I had um visited that on one of my trips to the Florida Keys and if you love sea turtles and you really want to kind of get up close and personal you don't get to touch them but you get really really close it's pretty awesome so just as an aside you can visit that sea Turtle Hospital in Marathon Florida so that concludes our little trip so now I have a 3-hour boat ride back to Key West and I will finish my little trip I actually took the Key West Express from Fort Meers to Key West and then we took this boat the next day so there was a lot of boats it was a lot of fun I stinking love living in Florida it's the best so I'm home with my sea glass and at this point I'm going to well first check out see if there's anything kind of cool and I think what I'll do is I'll put it into different groups like either it's garbage it's half baked or it's fully baked so just going of do that along the way see if there's anything interesting to point out now this I suspect is from a Pepsi bottle I know that PE I know big leap right so that's what I suspect that is kind of neat and this I don't know I got a a script or a cursive TTY I don't know what that is it's kind of neat need some sort of clue and then this looks like maybe an ly and then there was like a t and a star on that one but ultimately I broke it down into three different groups garbage on the oh my Beach Bowl so those are giant Atlantic cockles and so I have the Seaglass um the garbage essentially on the left that weighed in at 2.15 oz of Seaglass what I would consider garbage that next pile a little bit bigger that weighed in at 4.1 oz so those are kind of like the Half Baked and then the the stuff that I felt was more legitimately was or legitimate 5.05 o and then in total I've removed a little over 43 lbs of garbage off the beaches in Florida since I've started keeping track and I'm very grateful for people that I get support from that allow me to do things like these trips and all the other things that I do and those are my patreons so patreons thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart next week we are going to be local we're going to that special area around that Jetty in South Marco so you have yourself a fantastic week and I will see you again next Sunday