Once we got on board I took my long lens to the upper deck and snapped whatever caught my attention. This gallery contains shots of the landscape. I’ll have another with the pelicans and birds next. It seems that the pelicans have migrated down to the docks from the beach since our last cruise out of canaveral a couple of years ago.
Wondering if this is NASA stuff…that kind-of looks like the VAB with updates.
Yep, I think probably it is.
Those are some pretty big dishes.
…and massive cranes…
with the Space-X landing barge next to them
Quiet little dock…very large storage tanks…
Side of the terminal meets perspective crop.
Long way to kayak just to watch us head out.
A very lonely sign
A herd of signs
Looks like out escort…a little more chill than last time (no 50 cal)
The day came to pack up and head from Cocoa Beach to our short cruise. The morning dawned bright and clear but the day promised to get rougher towards afternoon.
We headed over to Cocoa Beach a few days ahead of our cruise and had a couple of wonderfully relaxing days at the Inn at Cocoa Beach. It was a much nicer place than we’d used before for our transition days between Disney park and Disney cruise. On the first full day in Cocoa Beach we saw the Disney Fantasy pull in from its dry dock time. Here are a few shots I got with my long lens.
A few more from this morning (large batch of originals as I was shooting pretty much everything that moved)
We’ve stayed at various places in Cocoa Beach before Disney Cruises in the past The Inn is the nicest by a good stretch and we’re almost certain to stay here again next year. Cocoa Beach has been moving from a spot to stay for a couple of days between Disney and a cruise to a destination of its own. It is a great place to unwind a bit after spending days running around Orlando doing fun but exhausting things.
Lonely piper.
Running, running, running
The bottom of a brown pelican
Coming in for a landing
….and a bit of a bumpy landing it was
Not sure that this is a crow
but he’s pretty cool looking
and seems to be looking right at me
captured sea foam in the act
A sand-piper who seems to know he’s being photographed.
Got up early to get dawn shots across the water and around the Inn…
Lots of color out there and the first few flocks of pelicans heading for the beach. Once the sun came up behind the clouds things got spectacular for a time. Very pretty place to sit and watch the sun rise…
Before the launch actually happened, we were looking for the launch site across the water. In the end, the actual launch site wasn’t visible from here, but I’ve included a couple of shots of things that we initially thought might be the launch site.
A drone was hovering over the bay. Not sure whether that was in any way connected to the launch itself, but I’ve shared some pics here anyway.
It was interesting to see that the pictures get more dramatic as the falcon 9 gets higher. Lower pressures outside of the nozzle and thus much greater expansion of the plume I’d guess.
Not the launch site
Definitely not the launch site
Drone watching the festivities
Someone had a drone out over the bay
Initial Launch
Starting to see a more dramatic and colorful plume.
Whoosh!
…and off into the sunset
There were a couple frames after this one, but the vehicle is so far off that they weren’t really interesting.
As we headed onto the beach this afternoon we saw two pigeons picking through the soft sand and various gulls that seemed perplexed by these two city-folk poking around their beach.
Two pigeons about town, looking for dinner in the sand.Does anyone know what these pigeons are doing here?Surrounded and confused.…and then this guy was trying to be a sand piper……and a real sandpiper for comparison purposes…
That last shot came out surprisingly crisp so I had to share…
