Thursday December 1st 2016

The sun shined and the temperature climbed into the mid 80s then the cold front arrived. About four this afternoon the temperature crashed around twenty degrees. It went from hot to uncomfortable in a matter of minutes.

Some of the people swimming in the Atlantic Ocean at the Jetty Park beach.

I took a long walk on the beach today. I’m not sure how far I walked, but I was gone from my RV home for around 3 hours. Starting from the beach at Jetty Park I walked south dodging the waves at the high water line. Coming back I got brave or board, I’m not sure which, and took off my shoes. I returned north in the water. The sand is very hard packed without a lot of rocks or shells. The shells I did see were more exotic than I saw a couple of weeks ago on Sanibel Island. I’m still not sure why the shelling capital of North America was so ordinary for me as I documented in Visit to Sanibel Island.

One of my co-walkers on the beach.

Even though it was a hot day there were not many people on the beach. A few swimmers were in the water near the life guard stand. Elsewhere on the beach there were a few sun bathers from some of the condo complexes and lots of walkers like me. I even saw one guy with a metal detector. He was in the surf and didn’t seem to be having much luck. It wasn’t enough to entice me into digging out my metal detector.

Cruise ship approaching through the haze that moved in with the cold front.

Later this afternoon, about the time the temperature changed, I was sitting on the side of the channel waiting for the cruise ship to depart. It was advertised as departing at 4PM, but it was after 5 before it passed by my location near the Ocean. It takes time for the ship to back out of its basin and turn around. The remarkable thing is that the cruise ships maneuver without support from tug boats. They may be huge ships but they have more maneuvering thrusters and other directional controls than the tankers and cargo ships.

Coast Guard security boat.

The primary support for the cruise ships is security. A sheriffs boat which I think is the harbor patrol and a heavily armed coast guard boat supported the cruise ships departure. The coast guard boat kept speeding up and down the sides of the cruise ship as it navigated down the channel.

Carnival Valor

Size comparison between the cruise ship and motor homes like mine.

There was only one Cruise ship in port today. It was a smaller Carnival cruise ship. Tomorrow two ships are in port and Saturday there are five. The Disney boats and one of the Norwegian cruise ships hold almost double the passengers. I continue to enjoy watching these tall floating hulks maneuver in and out of port, but I still don’t have any desire to be a captive on one.