Friday October 21st 2022

Today’s weather was an improvement on yesterday’s just OK weather. There were fewer clouds today with a little more temperature and wind. The temperature peaked in the mid seventies with low humidity.

There were five cruise ships in port today. This is the home port for three and the other two were on Ports of Call for longer cruises. Usually there is a well orchestrated plan for their departure. They’re scheduled for departure a half an hour to an hour apart. The Sheriff’s boat and the Coast Guard escort the big ships down the inlet and out to sea. The escort chases the small craft away from path of the big ship. They have to deal with everything from boats the size of floating bathtubs to big sailboats. There are also two pilot boats in use to shuttle the pilots between the ships.

Today things didn’t go according to plan. The first ship scheduled to depart at 3:30PM was the Carnival Liberty. It was docked at terminal 3 near the campground and the closest terminal to the ocean. I think the idea is to get it out of the way to provide more room for ships and small craft to maneuver. Today there was some form of medical emergency on the dock when the ship was scheduled to depart. The rescue squad and an ambulance had to attend to someone. I think it was probably a dock worker, since all of the gangways to the ship were retracted. The ship’s departure was delayed close to an hour.

The escort boats moved on to the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Sea for its departure while the emergency services people handled the issue on the dock at terminal 3. It was berthed deeper in the port at Cruise Terminal 1. Before it got underway the Casino Ship Victory arrived at terminal 2. The daily fishing excursion boats were also arriving home about this time. Things got really busy. Eventually the Independence of the Sea moved slowly past the Liberty and on out to sea.

The Carnival Liberty finally got its chance to depart next. Usually the ships turn around before they dock in the morning so they are heading out to sea. Today the Liberty had not turned around. It was tied up pointing deeper into the port. I think they was to perform maintenance on the port side of the ship while it was docked. The bottom line is it had to travel deeper into the port to the turning basin to get enough room to turn around. By the time it got turned around and headed out to sea it was around 5PM.

The next ship out was the last of the ships home ported at Port Canaveral. It was Disney’s newest and biggest ship the Wish. It’s only issue with departure was a little bit of a late start. In typical Disney style instead of a simple blast of its horn as it departed port, it serenaded us with Disney song melodies on its horns. I think it went a little overboard with half a dozen or more different tunes. Everything from “It’s a Small World” to “Beauty and the Beast”.

The last ship that I watched depart was the Holland American Nieuw Statendam. It made its way down the inlet with the setting sun in the background. I didn’t wait for the last ship to depart. It was getting dark and cold.

While waiting for the cruise ships to depart, I got a few nature pictures of birds, flowers and one of the members of the feral cat colony.