Monday October 17th 2022

I was starting to enjoy cooler temperatures, but yesterday reversed the trend. Sunday’s temperatures were close to records in some areas. Last night the temperature slowly got down into the low seventies, but it was difficult to sleep. Today was partly cloudy with an off shore breeze that kept the temperature in the eighties. The humidity was high once again and potentially severe thunderstorms were forecast for late in the day. Some rain fell in this area, but the strong storms passed to the north and south of this area of coast as they moved out into the Atlantic. I turned the AC back on when the storms arrived. Tomorrow is a transition day and Wednesday and Thursday are forecast to be well below normal temperatures.

This morning I woke to the sound of equipment moving about complete with lots of backup alarms. It turned out that a big Carnival Cruise Lines ship was docked nearby. The new cruise terminal 3 was completed a couple of years ago next to the campground, but because of COVID it hasn’t been in use during my visits to this park over the last two years. This morning was the first time a ship was docked at the terminal during my stay at Jetty Park. The huge ships makes it seem very close. Around noon, when new passengers started arriving, I could see the video on their huge screen and hear the music being played to welcome the passengers. Shortly after 3PM the Carnival Liberty started blowing its horn and preparing to depart. I walked over to the waters edge to watch the departure. About 5 minutes after it cleared the port the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Sea departed from deeper in the harbor. I could not hang around to see the Disney Wish depart, because it was starting to rain as the line of storms approached.

Wandering around the campground, fishing pier and beach today I saw some evidence of the resent storm. Work crews were busy filling in a deep hole on the back side of the seawall just before the fishing pier. The hole was behind a jog in the side of the channel that exposes the area to the full force of wind and water coming in from the open sea. It was easy to visualize the water breaking over the seawall and doing lots of damage. By the end of the day the hole was filled with boulders and gravel. I think I heard that they planned to top it with concrete similar to other areas of the sea wall.

There is a holding area between the parking area and the campground. It is depressed area of grass that is about five feet lower than the surrounding ground. Usually it is a nice area of green grass roped off from the rest of the parking lot and play area. Today the depression is filled with brown dead grass from extended exposure to salt water. Some of the surrounding area is also brown so it was full to overflowing for awhile. Overall the area fared pretty well considering the destruction the storm caused in other areas.