Pirate Fashions be vending at Jimmy Buffet's Parrothead national conversion, called Meeting of the Mind. I decided to visit the Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas National Park. This small pit of an island be located 67 miles west of Key West n take a high speed ferry 2 hours to get to. It be discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1513 and named Tortuga due to the many turtles that inhabited the key. Dry was later added to the name to inform sailors of it's lack of drinkable water.
After the British sailed up to Washington, DC and burned it in the War of 1812, the US came up with the plan to build a number of forts to protect our nation, since it could not afford to build a large navy. The fort is the largest brick structure built in the US, which consist of 16 million bricks. It was designed to hold 420 heavy guns including the 15 inch Rodman smoothbore cannon that weighted 25 tons each. At its height in the 1860, 2000 people lived on this small key. The construction of the fort began in 1846 and continued for 30 years, but was never finished.
This be an amazing place to visit, even if it never had any pirate history to it, as it was made over century after the Golden Age, but I am sure pirate probably made a quick stop fer some turtle soup, arrrgh!
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