Waiting for. Lorna at the exit to destination space. Coming to the end of a wonderful vacation. Disney parks, great food and a double dip cruise. Only thing that could have made it better would have been if Alyssa could have joined us.
Category Archives: Vacation
Vacation shots of any sort
Delayed into port on our Disney cruise ship.
We are going to be hitting dry land a bit after noon today rather than early in the morning. The Disney Fantasy was just out of dry dock for this double dip castaway key cruise. Last night as we were getting to sleep, they announced to the whole ship that we’d be late into port Canaveral as there was a propulsion problem. By this morning they had put numbers on it. Currently sitting in our cabin waiting…
Second Batch from this morning…
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.
Flying by
Pelicans in groups
Feet wet
Ghost crab?
coming out
and just about at the limits
caught in action
A Walk on the Beach
There were fewer pelicans on the beach this morning than I had hoped for but I managed to get some great shots of other critters roaming the sands…
The Inn…very nice place to stay
Lorna headed for water’s edge
Morning glories
Over the Horizon
Got at least one decent pelican shot
Strange tree of blackbirds
Shy bird but I’m told that she bites.
Local Macaw at the Inn
Dawn at Cocoa Beach…
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…
Not a pelican…
The flock arrives
Falcon 9 Launch of an IntelSat Payload
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.
Photos from the beach at cocoa
Pigeons of Cocoa Beach
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.
That last shot came out surprisingly crisp so I had to share…
Saw the Disney Fantasy Coming In
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.
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.
Morning Excitement at Cocoa Beach…
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…
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.