We went out to walk the beach and saw the fantasy coming into port. It just finished a short yard period and we’re heading out on her for a two castaway key short cruise later in the week.
Disney Fantasy coming into Cocoa Beach
When we got back to the room, Lorna mentioned that she had heard people talking about a launch from the space center at 5:30 or so. I checked and it was an Inmarsat on a falcon 5 being launched so I found my way up to the deck where people were looking on and took some shots with my new lens. I’ll post those as soon as my earlier beach expedition finishes importing…stay tuned.
We went swimming and as we were heading in to the shore the pair of pelicans that had landed thirty feet further out from us took off into the air. A short bit after that something rather large went past us. It looked dark brown with lighter brown spots and rather large (though surprise can magnify things). I only saw it for a moment looking like a curved edge like a manatee’s tail (but clearly not as they don’t move that fast. No idea what it really was…I expect it was looking for a pelican snack and after missing them it cruised past us and decided we didn’t look interesting…
Floatin’…Pelicans inbound
Later in the day Lorna heard that there had been manatees seen around the pier down the beach. Scary when it happened, but it now looks like we had a close encounter with a manatee.
Now for a couple of days at The Inn at Cocoa Beach to relax after the usual whirlwind of activity at Disney.
The Inn at Cocoa BeachVery nice view out there
…and breakfast…
Dining area in the morning sunSlept in a bit this morningEnjoyed the complementary breakfast…at least I did as it was a quiche with broccoli and some sort of cheese in it 🙂Morning View out to SeaOh and a red nose for charity…
While stopped at an overlook of the beach and sea (with cannons) we saw an osprey fly up and hover looking for prey. Amazing shots of it hanging there. It took me a little while to get my long lens swapped in (I have a set of not very good shots from the landscape lens I had been using) but I got more than enough frames.
A wonderful bicycle ride around Guernsey. Beautiful scenery, narrow roads, very pastoral with occasional bunkers.
Our guides were great and it was very nice to be out in the air riding bikes and not in a tour bus sitting. I carried my big camera slung on my side/back. It was a bit of a nuisance, but the pictures were worth the hassle.
We stopped at a little tea house and grabbed a snack, a very tasty slice of apple pie in my case.
Coming into the harbor and on the short bus ride to the other side of the island I grabbed some shots of the areas we passed through. Beautiful old houses and interesting building (and lots of walls).
This is just the first set containing images from the Magic looking over the harbor…more to come from the excursion.
The day started overcast with occasional patches of sun shining through the clouds. By the time we headed over for our bike ride, it was a gloriously sunny day.
We got home last night at about 10 PM. The trip back was a bit stressful, messy and unexpectedly expensive, but in the end everything worked out and we’re here in Hudson, NH with all of our stuff and relatively well rested. The economy plus makes a huge difference to the flight (given the six plus hour transit time).
I’m in the process of unpacking, checking for any last images on camera chips and such and getting the LightRoom database connected to my desktop system here with the good monitors (my current laptop stinks for viewing images). I expect to get a few interesting shots up today or tomorrow with a continuing series from throughout the trip as time permits. I’m going to try to keep putting a few up day on day if I can.
Lots to do, lots to catch up on and a bunch of technical bits that I need to dig deeper into. I was reading the OpenGL 3D documentation on the flight home and I really want to try some things with that API before Monday.
Keep in mind that the blog entries since the first were written on my phone to capture my thoughts in the moment and are a bit rough and spotty.
