Leaving DRTO

Hi Kids...

Sorry about the delay, it's been crazy here.
Trying to get caught up with 3 weeks worth of progress in the office... I'm just getting the low-down on most of the current projects and other upcoming events, some of which I am heavily involved in/with.
Have you ever noticed when you aren't in the event meetings because you are elsewhere (i.e "on vacation") you wind up being assigned the not-quite-so-nice tasks, or cut out of tasty assignments...?
Oh well... My turn in the barrel, I guess. Not a bad exchange for 3 weeks on Garden Key.
No matter how small the accommodations, it is still a great place to live for three weeks.

Cozy Quarters- you see the picnic table on the second level? that's where the volunteers live.
Great view, itty-bitty living space.

The visitors, however... But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Speaking of which...

Let's see... How about the last few days in the Tortugas?...

Lots of fun things going on. Like the girl from Virginia, Olivia, and her boyfriend John who were fishing off the dock and caught a remora...
One of the guys that was hanging about suggested that she stick her arm out and let it adhere itself to her...
Hilarity ensued, along with a rather suspicious-looking hickey.

Good times, good times.

A shark was also dragged in by one of the local fishermen... About a 4 foot nurse shark.

Yours Truly examining the tag in the front dorsal fin.

There's a bunch of Mote Marine Labs shark researchers working out at the Fort right now. It's silly season for the nurse sharks out there. Nothing like spending hours sitting on a ladder getting your jollies watching 8' long nurse sharks makin' whopee.
Perverts.

Let's see...

We had a bunch of heavy equipment show up out at Ft. Jeff... A tractor, backhoe and a boomlift- Moving some structures from the helicopter pad to the North Coaling Dock, and re-plumbing the diesel lines from the main dock to the disel storage tanks.
As they were taking the equipment off the LST/Barge, it lost power and steering and slewed sideways and almost took a big bite out of one of our visitor's boats.

I watched from a distance. No way was I getting tangled up in this fiasco...

On a lighter note, it seems like several people didn't like the way I handled some issues that cropped up during my last week at the Fort...
I know that the owners of the Yankee Freedom got a 4-page letter that outlined what horrible treatment some campers got while out at the Park. The crew, who recieved a reprimand from their owners of their company, said that Yours Truly was mentioned several times in the course of the letter for "conduct unbecoming..." or some such other horseshit...
Another group were really miffed at the way I dealt with their nocturnal change-of-address... It was too hot in their campsite, so they decided to move out to the beach so they might catch a breeze.
(Hey, if it's too hot for you, stay your ass in Key West in your air-conditioned hovel.)
I rather unceremoniously told them to get their tent and stuff off the beach immediately (no profanity, wonder of wonders, eh?) otherwise I would make sure every one of them got a ticket for a closure violation.

Another group took pains to press every one of my buttons while they camped for two nights. Within 10 minutes of arriving, they were arguing about established policies and how they hadn't been covered on this and that issue, and how they didn't have to pay their fees, and why had they been forbidden to bring anything to cook with, etc.
Everthing was a struggle with these people, and then they bent or broke every rule established for the safety and well being of the visitors and the Park-
They threw a load of garbage in the composting toilets, which I had to then go fish out of the muck and mire in the holding tank of the facility. (Do you think I was pissed about that? You have no idea....)
Yours Truly:"Do you remember the camper Orientation? What part of 'ONLY human waste and OUR toilet paper goes in these toilets' did you not understand?"
Pain-in-the-ass Camper:"Oh. We thought, since they were composting toilets we could throw our orange peels and other food trash down there. Sorry."
They hung all their towels in my poor pitiful trees... They borrowed a kayak and were paddling around the swim area.
YT:"Didn't you see the sign that said 'No Boats'?"
PITA Camper: "But this is a kayak."
I was having a hard time supressing the urge to find powder and shot to load one of the Rodmans up on the top of the fort to blow that silly SOB out of the water. Not killing this group took every bit of my self-control, and drove me to the very end of my charming demeanor.

My replacements showed up and we had them trained in no time at all...
On Thursday morning I bartered a seat on the deadhead run of the first seaplane of the day and was back in Key West by 9:30AM...
(Sorry no pics. I thought I had left my camera during the rush to get to the plane.)
When I got off the plane, I was confronted by the guy I had yelled at for moving his tent out onto the beach. WTF?
Chuck and Eloise were giving me a ride from the airport to my car and as we were loading up, this guy (who works at the local FBO at EYW) confronts me...
"Hey man. I really didn't like how you handled the situation the other day down at Ft. Jefferson."
It took a second then I figured it out... He and his buddies had taken the weekend off and had come out to the Fort in their boat. I let him have his say, how he took offense, and didn't like my attitude... Well... Maybe I was a bit heavy handed, but like I told him, the first few times, I can be somewhat diplomatic about transgressions... After the 20th time, you're going to get the Hammer.
Besides... this guy is a local- he should have known better than to pull that kind of stunt down there.
(God I hope they goes back down there and pull that stunt again soon. Ranger Trep is back in town, and these guys will be up to their eyeballs in federal violation citations before they can say "Boy howdy".)

It is just amazing... The only people who complain about how they are treated are the ones who get yelled at/ticketed/in trouble for violations of the rules.

After this little exchange I have formulated the following theory:

Trying to educate visitors to the Dry Tortugas is like trying to light a wet cigarette...on a rollercoaster...with a childproof lighter...in a thunderstorm...with no thumbs.

Anyway- Back in KW- Retrieved Physalia, had lunch and did a couple errands...
I was on the road before 2:00 and got back into Jax by 11:00Pm...
One really long day, that one...

Amazing- back in the saddle.