The same Caribbean-blue waters that offer such a beautiful tonal contrast through Fort Jefferson’s embrasures also will contribute to its ultimate, if gradual, crumble to ruin, without major measures of maintenance. Hurricanes and other storms fueled by the high oceanic heat content of the nearby Gulf and Caribbean will wear the structure down through wind, waves, salt spray, and the effective pressure-wash of speed rain. Through particle by particle of crumbled masonry, brick by brick falling, a combination of weather elements and rising sea levels should turn this fort—the largest brick structure in the Americas—into a shoal in several hundred to a couple thousand years, give or take.
Garden Key FL (20 Nov 15) Looking NW
24.6281, -82.8724