Monday April 26th 2021

Yesterday’s rain and humidity was long gone this morning. Today was a warm day in the eighties with a nice breeze and not a lot of humidity.

After completing the setup tasks it was too humid to struggle with yesterday, I took a drive around the area. I didn’t have any real goal in mind beyond filling the car’s gas tank. I ended up at Port Canaveral. If I could have gotten reservations at Jetty Park, I would have been staying there rather than my current location about thirty miles away.

My first stop along the way was at Kelly Park on Merritt Island. The nice little park and boat launch on the Banana River is a great place to watch water activities. I’ve seen kite boarders in the past, but today was a day for sailboards. There were people of various skill levels on the river. One guy was speeding back and forth taking full advantage of the wind, while several others were struggling to stay upright. It was more fun watching those with less skill crashing into the river before getting back up on the board.

Once I got to Port Canaveral I parked at The Cove. The dinning and entertainment area of the port was busy but not as busy as it could be this time of year. All of the restaurants were set up for socially distant dinning, but I wasn’t there for that. I stopped to watch the activity in the port. None of the Cruise ships that call the port home were in port. It is cheaper for the ships to anchor out in the waters between the US and the Bahamas and only visit the port when they have a need. The Port is struggling without the cruise traffic, but is still busy with shipping.

Along side a bulkhead on the north side of the port was a barge with a used SpaceX booster rocket. I think it is the booster that lifted the Crew Dragon 2 capsule into space last week. It is a very large soot covered cylinder, but if you didn’t know what it was you would probably dismiss it as a piece of junk. It would be interesting to see the cranes take the booster off the barge so it can be transported back for refurbishment.

The port is used a lot for NASA related activities. A set of rocket engines for NASA’s next moon capable rocket is in route from Louisiana. I’d like to see that arrive at the port in the next few days. I’ll keep checking on the internet to see if I can deduce when it arrives.