Sunday December 4th 2016

Today was another unusually warm day for the area. It was in the mid to upper 70s with bright sunshine and a light breeze. The current weather pattern is forecast to break tomorrow night with rain on Tuesday.

I watched the weekend residents pack up and leave the campground this morning. There are plenty of available spaces in the campground again. I don’t understand the number of empty sites. At similar time of year in the past this place has been full or close to it. I thought there weren’t many open sites when I made my reservation back in May, but that could have been my understanding of the reservation system. The other possibility is the vacancies are caused by the hurricane. The campground was closed for almost a month after the storm. Reservations for those periods were canceled. Maybe there were long term reservations that were canceled.

Lingering damage from Hurricane Matthew in the campground is still visible. Some of the street lamps are either down or have shattered bulbs. The laundry facility in the east end is closed. It looks like the machines took on a bit of water. The fence around the maintenance facility is missing many plastic slats and a few trees have newly cut branches. Overall, the campground seems to be in good shape considering this is the location that the storm made its closest approach to Florida.

Blue Heron wading in the Banana River.

Sailboard rider in the Banana River

I went grocery shopping in Merritt Island this afternoon. There are stores nearer, but the trip gave me an opportunity to stop at a couple of the parks on the Banana River. At Kelly Park I had a good time watching the sail boarders and kite surfers on the river. There is a board rental and training facility at the park. I doubt any of the people I was watching were students. Some of the riders were doing some impressive riding.

Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Sea.

Rear view of the Oasis of the Sea as it leaves port. Note the open rear, the interior state rooms balconies get some daylight.

Back at the campground, I joined the throngs of people from the area at the side of the channel to watch the cruise ships depart. There were only two ships tonight, but there were many more people than yesterday when five ships departed the port. My big attraction was the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Sea. It is the second largest cruise ship in the world at this time. It isn’t a lot longer than the other big ships, but it is a little wider and much taller. I counted 10 decks above the top of the traditional hull. The more pedestrian Carnival Valor that preceded the Oasis of the Sea out of port only had six. It looked like a big huge box top of a ships hull. From the rear you can see that it is a hallow box. Inside balconies on interior state rooms are visible.

I think I’ve seen all of the ships that call Port Canaveral their home port. When they pass by I’ll still stop and watch, but I don’t think I’ll be planning my day around seeing them leave port any more. While I didn’t intend to, that is what I’ve been doing this weekend.