Charter Flights

Seaplane to Dry Tortugas National Park

Seventy miles west of Key West, past the last bridge of the Overseas Highway, Fort Jefferson stands on Garden Key in open water. There is no road to it. The National Park Service names four ways in: the ferry, a seaplane, a private boat and a permitted charter.

This page explains what each one actually gets you, which of them Crown Air can arrange and which one is held under a federal concession that we do not hold.

• Water Landings
• Dock to Dock
• No Terminal
• Island Access
• Private Departure

The Park Service lists them as ferry, seaplane, private boat and permitted charter. They are not variations of one another. They differ in how long you get on the island, what the day costs you in travel time and who is allowed to carry you.

• The daily ferry. The high-volume route from Key West and the one most visitors take. It is a long day on the water in each direction and the crossing is the part that weather cancels.
• The concession seaplane. Sold by the seat, operated by the single holder of the National Park Service concession. Short flight, half day or full day on the island and capacity is limited by the Park Service rather than by the aircraft.
• A private boat. Your own vessel or a charter yacht. This is the option with no time limit on the island and the one that pairs with a yacht itinerary out of Key West.
• A permitted charter. Operators holding a permit with the park for diving, snorkelling, fishing, birdwatching and similar. The Park Service publishes the list and it is longer than most visitors expect.

A private seaplane arrival sits alongside these rather than inside them and it carries its own entrance pass bought in advance. That is the category Crown Air works in and it is the one that is being confirmed before we sell it.

The Dry Tortugas are a cluster of seven islands of coral and sand and Fort Jefferson is the central feature of the group. The Park Service calls it the largest masonry fort in the western hemisphere.

It was nearly thirty years in the making, from 1846 to 1875 and it was never finished nor fully armed. It was also never attacked. What survives is a vast brick wall standing straight out of shallow water, visible from the air long before the aircraft is near it.

For a visitor the fort is not a museum with an itinerary. It is a structure you walk through, a moat wall you walk around and a beach on the far side. The snorkelling starts immediately off the shore of Garden Key rather than a boat ride away, which is unusual for a reef destination and is the reason a short island stay is still worth the crossing.

The other islands carry the rest of the park. Loggerhead Key is the largest of the seven and holds the lighthouse.

Bush Key sits alongside Garden Key, the sand between them shifts and the Park Service closes it for part of the year for ground nesting birds, so what you can walk to depends on the month you come. The park has no visitor services in the ordinary sense and does not accept cash.

The seventy miles between Key West and the Tortugas are the reason people call this the best low-level flight in Florida. Flown low, the water reads like a map. These are the named features along the route and each is a reason to look out of the window rather than a stop:

• The Flats. A broad shallow bank west of Key West, a few feet deep and part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Sharks, rays and turtles show up from the air on a clear day because the water is too shallow to hide anything.
• Ballast Key. The last privately held island before the sanctuary water opens up and the only one under the route with a house on it.
• The Marquesas Keys. A ring of mangrove islands roughly twenty five miles out. The circular shape is unmistakable from the air and invisible from a boat.
• The Quicksands. The deeper sand ground west of the Marquesas and the salvage area where the Spanish galleon Atocha was worked. Wrecks in this stretch sit shallow enough to read from the air.
• Rebecca Shoal. The last marked hazard before the park and the point where the water changes colour again on the run in to Garden Key.

None of this is visible from a ferry deck and none of it is reachable by road. It is the strongest argument for arriving by air rather than by water and it holds whether or not the aircraft lands inside the park.

• Fort Jefferson itself. You walk it rather than tour it. The parade ground, the casemates, the second tier and the top of the wall, plus the moat wall you can walk right around. Allow more time than you think for the wall, because it is where the view of the reef is.
• Snorkelling straight off the beach. The coral and the old coaling piers are immediately off the shore of Garden Key, so there is no boat leg between landing and swimming. That is rare in the Keys and it is the reason a half day here is still a real day.
• Loggerhead Key. The largest of the seven islands and the one with the lighthouse. It is a separate landing and not part of a standard Garden Key stop, so if you want it, it has to be planned into the flight rather than added on the day.
• Birds. The park is one of the best known birding sites in North America and the reason serious birdwatchers charter at all. Spring migration is the season and there are Park Service permitted birding operators.
• Camping and the one restriction that surprises people. Garden Key has campsites, but the Park Service limits camping transportation to private vessel, permitted tour guides or the commercial ferry. A seaplane arrival is a day trip by definition. If your party wants to stay the night, the aircraft is the wrong way in and we will say so.

None of this needs a guide and most of it needs nothing but water and shade. Whatever goes on board for the day, snorkelling equipment included, is counted into the same weight and balance as the baggage, so we ask what you are bringing before the day is confirmed.

The arithmetic of the day is the part worth understanding before you choose how to travel, because the distance does not change and the island does not have a hotel. Everything is a round trip from Key West on the same date and the only variable you control is how much of the day you spend crossing and how much you spend on the island.

By water the crossing dominates. It is roughly seventy miles of open Gulf in each direction, it runs to a fixed schedule and it is the leg that weather cancels.

By air the crossing is short enough that the island stops being a logistics problem and starts being a destination, which is why the seat-based seaplane service exists at all and why its capacity is limited by the Park Service rather than by the aircraft.

A private flight changes a third thing that neither option offers: the departure time is yours. That matters here more than on most routes, because light and water clarity over the Flats and the Marquesas are best early and because a party that wants the fort without the crowd wants to be there when the ferry is not.

The park is sold as a morning, an afternoon or a full day and a chartered aircraft into Key West sets its own departure around whichever of those you take.

What does not change with any of them: there is no fuel, no food and no shop on the island, the park takes no cash and everything you want in the afternoon has to be on board when you leave Key West. Parties that treat it like a beach club day out are the ones who have a difficult afternoon.

• Wind is the deciding factor. Not rain. The Tortugas sit in open water with no shelter and both a boat crossing and a water landing are governed by sea state. A bright day with a strong breeze is a worse day here than an overcast calm one.
• Winter fronts. Cold fronts push through the Straits through the winter months and bring the wind with them. They pass in a day or two, which is why a flexible date is worth more at this destination than at any other in the Keys.
• Summer heat and afternoon storms. The summer pattern is calm mornings and convective storms later in the day. It is the strongest argument for an early departure rather than a late one.
• Nesting season. Parts of the park close for months for ground nesting birds. It changes what you can walk to rather than whether you can come and it is the one restriction people find out about on the day instead of before.
• Book the date, plan the alternative. Every serious operator into this park briefs a fallback, because the honest answer on a marginal day is that the landing does not happen. A charter can move the date. A ferry seat and a concession seat in season often cannot.

We say before you book which of these applies to your date and we would rather move a flight than fly a party into a day that will disappoint them. One limit is hard and has nothing to do with comfort: water landings run only from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so nothing on floats arrives in the dark.

• Entrance pass. The standard pass is $15.00 per person. An America the Beautiful pass covers it. Visitors arriving by private boat or private seaplane are told to buy the digital pass in advance through Recreation.gov rather than on arrival.
• The park is cashless. It does not accept cash at all. That catches people out more often than the fee itself.
• Nothing is sold on the island. No food, no fuel, no shop beyond the Park Service counter. Water, lunch and anything you want in the afternoon comes with you on the aircraft.
• Seasonal closures. Parts of the fort and neighbouring Bush Key close for months at a time for nesting birds and for structural work. What is open on your date is worth checking the week before rather than the month before.
• Everything is protected. It is a national park: no spearfishing, no lobster, no collecting coral or shells. Drones are banned in United States national parks and that ban includes licensed operators, so any aerial photography here is flown from the aircraft, never from a drone.

Weight and baggage are not a fixed allowance per head on a float aircraft. It is payload limited, so passenger weights, bags and fuel go through one calculation before the day is confirmed.