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.

Thursday October 20th 2022

It was warmer than I anticipated this morning. The inside temperature only got down into the low sixties. Probably because some cloud cover remained overnight and the ocean water is still very warm, it didn’t get as cold in this area as some of he inland areas. The day remained cloudy with a few breaks now and then. Today’s high temperature was a little better than Wednesday peaking in the low seventies.

The big event in this area today was a Space X Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. I have been lucky enough to watch launches from here before, but I didn’t think I was going to get the chance during this stay. When I booked my reservation a couple of weeks ago there were no launches scheduled this week. I guess the Starlink Internet Satellite payload and the Falcon 9 booster came together quicker than planned. Yesterday I saw the warning sign about the launch for boat traffic departing the port. A quick check on the internet and I knew that I had to be in a good observation spot for 10:50AM today.

There were a lot of people lining the banks of the channel, the fishing pier and the beach to watch the launch this morning. This is not a particularly special launch so the number of people was manageable. I have been here when a lot more people were gathered to see the launch. The weather today wasn’t the best for watching the rocket high into the sky. You had to catch it as it passed through gaps in the clouds. The sliver of fire rose from the land, passing through a lower layer of clouds before flying in the clear for a few seconds. Shortly after the sound of the engines reached my location the rocket disappeared into the clouds for good.

I enjoyed watching the launch, but it wasn’t the best I’ve seen. The best Falcon 9 launch I’ve seen was on a clear night. It was possible to watch the rocket high into the sky. The Falcon 9 Heavy launch which has three boosters strapped together was a much more spectacular ball of fire, and I got to watch two of the boosters land after the launch. Probably my most memorable launch was in the early 90s. I had the opportunity to see a Space Shuttle launch from the beach a few miles south of here. My memory, which may be exaggerated by time, recalls a much bigger sphere of fire moving quickly into the upper atmosphere.

There was only one cruise ship in port today. The Carnival Freedom was docked deep in the harbor. Carnival seems to set sail early. Shortly after 3:30PM it started sounding its horn to announce it was getting underway. It slowly made its way down the channel to the ocean. It cleared the jetty between 4 and 4:30.

Wednesday October 19th 2022

The wind began to blow about 1AM last night. It continued into the day today. This morning there was a heavy cloud cover preventing the sun from warming things up. It was still well below seventy at noon today. During the afternoon a little bit of sun started to break through the clouds, but the temperature still remained in the sixties. Tonight the cloud cover has departed and the temperature has already started to drop. It is going to be unseasonably cold tonight.

Today was a sweatshirt day and with the wind, that almost wasn’t enough. I even saw one couple all bundled up in winter coats, with hoods up and at least one of them had gloves on. Cold weather in Florida is met with strange responses. This kind of temperature with strong northern winds is more common in late December and January. The average daily high temperature in October is in the low eighties.

Port Canaveral was quiet again today. There were no cruise ships in port. The freighters and tankers deeper in the port looked to be different from yesterday, but the change happened overnight. All day there were ships in the anchorage off shore waiting for their turn in the port. This evening a strange looking vessel appeared from the haze on the horizon. Using full zoom on my camera it became clear that the craft was a returning drown ship carrying a spent Falcon 9 booster rocket from the weekend Space X launch. I waited until close to darkness, but it didn’t enter the port. I got too cold to keep waiting. There will be another one returning over the weekend if tomorrow’s launch happens on schedule.

Tuesday October 18th 2022

The first half of the day was filled with sunshine allowing the temperature to climb. The second half of the day was overcast keeping it from getting too warm. As the cold front passed through the area a line of thunderstorms passed out to sea south of here. Overall it was a nice weather day.

I spent the day relaxing around the park watching the activity coming and going from the port. It wasn’t a busy day during the daylight hours, but several large ships are in the anchorage off the coast waiting for their dock to become available. None of the Port Canaveral based cruise ships were in port today, but Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas made a port call today. It arrived for one of its stops on a seven day sailing out of New York around noon. Tonight at 9PM it continues on to the Bahamas. Usually you have to be up before dawn to see a cruise ship arrive in port.

The wildlife is also an interesting target of observation. In addition to all of the different birds, the squirrels can be quite entertaining. People have been feeding them so they are way too tame. While I was sitting on a bench one of the little rodents jumped up on the seat next to me and stared at me waiting for a handout. It didn’t get anything so it scurried away after a few seconds. In past years there have been feral cats wandering around, but so far this year I haven’t seen any.

The great event of the day was the arrival of a medevac helicopter. It came in low over the campground and landed in the empty overflow parking lot for the boat launching area. The noise and vibrations were extreme. The copter was only a hundred feet or so above my RV home. They transferred a patient from an ambulance to the helicopter before it took off. Thankfully, the takeoff wasn’t over the campground.

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.

Sunday October 16th 2022

The day started cool in the mid sixties, but warmed up quickly. I started my packing in a sweatshirt and ended dripping sweat in a short sleeve shirt. I pulled out of the Sun Outdoors St. Augustine RV park at 10:50AM ten minutes before checkout time. My travel day was relatively short. It was only about 125 miles south along Interstate 95 to Port Canaveral.

My first stop was only an exit away from my starting location. An adventure in filling the gas tank began. There is a Flying J complete with dedicated RV lanes. When I arrived one lane had two RVs in line backward from the normal path. The other lane had a FedX delivery truck that looked like it had finished fueling and was about to depart. I pulled in behind the delivery truck. After about five minutes had passed one of the drivers from the other lane told me that the driver had been there for at least fifteen minutes and was just talking on his phone. The other driver had been waiting behind him where I was before moving to the other lane from the opposite direction. He had asked the guy to move on, but had been ignored. I really can’t back up to change plans without disconnecting my towed car, so I was stuck. When I asked the driver if he was broken down, I was informed “I can park where ever I want”. He was still on his phone. A Flying J worker was aware of the issue, but wasn’t willing to intervene. It took another ten minutes before the FedX driver moved to another part of the parking area. Clearly he was just being an “ass”.

Once I pulled up to the pump, turned off the engine and prepared to pump some fuel, the saga at the pumps wasn’t over. The card reader wasn’t working. I had to go inside to prepay. That meant I had to estimate how much I was going to spend. I had about a quarter of a tank by the gauge, so I decided on $150 as my prepay amount. That was a very conservative guess. I didn’t want to over pay, since it would probably be lost money. The alternative would be to leave my Credit Card unattended with the cashier inside. That wasn’t going to happen. The bottom line is I didn’t fully fill the tank, but I got close.

The rest of the trip down Interstate 95 was uneventful. I arrived at Jetty park shortly before 2PM after killing some time at a rest area. Setting up in the heat was no fun. It seemed to bother me more today than normal. Later in the day I took my first walk over to the inlet to the port. I was rewarded for my exercise with the view of a departing cruise ship.

Saturday October 15th 2022

It was another cool start to the day. It was in the low sixties this morning. By the afternoon the temperature was a little north of eighty. There was a little more wind than Friday, but the humidity remained low.

Today was a slow chores day. That translates to lots of down time, but getting a few things accomplished around my RV home. During that down time I caught parts of a few college football games and a little bit of the baseball playoffs. This is also my last day here. I got a few of the day before travel tasks accomplished and started to pickup the clutter inside.

The campground is in full blown weekend mode. There are lots of small groups of two or three families cooking together and enjoying a fire in the portable fire pits. There aren’t a lot of kids in the park this weekend. I only saw one group riding bicycles around the park. Bigger kids called adults were busier with their bikes. There were a lot of very noisy motorcycles. If you ever wondered what’s in the back of the toy hauler trailers, it is more often than not a motorcycle or two.

With two weeks to go before Halloween, I expected to see more decorations. There only seems to be two sites with blow up pumpkins and ghosts. This is the type of campground that I would expect to see a lot more. Maybe everybody is saving there decorations for the last weekend of the month. This park has a lot of events planned.

Tomorrow I’m driving about 125 miles south to Jetty Park on the water at Port Canaveral. I have about 3 hours between the checkout time here and the check in time there. I plan to stop for gas and probably will kill some time in a rest area too. The drive is relatively simple; right down Interstate 95.

Friday October 14th 2022

The cold front passed through without fanfare last night. The sun was bright in the deep blue sky all day. It was less humid, so the mid eighties temperature felt much cooler. There was nothing to complain about with today’s weather.

On today’s drive I crossed the Intercoastal waterway onto the barrier islands along the Atlantic. The water level in the waterway is still seems higher than normal. I’m not sure why since most of the runoff inland goes west and north into the St. Johns River. It is still above normal, but coming down slowly. Along A1A, the primary route down the coast, there were piles of debris and yard waste waiting to be picked up. The volume wasn’t significantly more or less than what I’ve seen along the streets in the neighborhoods near the campground. Near the inlets and out near the beach there was some evidence of beach erosion and a few of the access points were blocked off. Overall the impact of hurricane Ian was minimal in this area. I can only hope it will be similar mild level at my next stop right on the ocean in Port Canaveral.

The campground has filled up substantially for the weekend. There are still a few empty sites scattered throughout the campground. It looks like there is a Jacksonville area camping club taking up many sites in one area of the park. This is not the same group that was in the campground when I was here during the summer, but apparently this is a popular spot for RV groups. This group seems to be an FMCA chapter.

The water in the campground was off this afternoon. I didn’t see any work going on in the park, so I’m not sure what the cause might be. It came back on by the supper hour, but the flow rate is very low. It only seems to be strong enough to flush the toilet. I have ten gallons or so in my internal tank which I will use as needed. Taking a shower with the current water pressure would be a miserable experience.

Thursday October 13th 2022

Today began with a similar cloud cover to Wednesday. There was an elevated probability of morning rain, but it never materialized. By the noon hour the sky was blue and the sun was beating down. The line of rain and thunderstorms had pushed through and was out over the Atlantic Ocean. The cold front associated with the storms is due to move through the area overnight. There is the possibility of rain as the front passes. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day with far less humidity and a high five or more degrees lower than today’s high at around eighty degrees.

This area was well to the north and west of the center of hurricane Ian’s track line. The storm crossed back out into the Atlantic about 100 miles to the south of here between Daytona Beach and Titusville. The strength of the storm in this area was far less than others had to deal with. Even so, the streets in some of the neighborhoods I drove through today were lined with tree and other debris to be collected. There were even a couple of tree service trucks working near power lines to clean up additional damage. It has been two weeks since the storm passed and this area is not fully back to normal. Just think what it must be like in the southwest of the Florida peninsular. The daily reports from Fort Meyers on the news have ended, but the cleanup is just getting started. They were subject to so much worse than this area.

While I was out, I stopped at the local Walmart to stock up on supplies. They had lots of gaps on the shelves, but lots of pallets of stock in the aisles. The missing element was the staff to put the content of the pallets on the shelves. It really was a bit of an obstacle course. I got everything I needed just not always in the size I prefer. For example, I usually buy the biggest “can” of coffee I can find. Today I had to settle for the regular size. This Walmart was also very low on eggs. They weren’t as out of stock as the last Walmart I visited, but picking was slim. It is a good thing eggs aren’t a big element of my diet.

The campground is filling up for the weekend. I’d guess that about half of last nights empty sites are now full. Tomorrow will probably fill most of those sites. The new arrivals seem to be mostly Florida residents.

Wednesday October 12th 2022

This is the first day in months that I didn’t see the sun all day. It was cloudy and threatening rain all morning. During the afternoon the clouds thought about allowing the sun to break through, but they won the battle in the end. Overall, it was a very humid dull day. The temperature peaked in the low to mid eighties.

Possibly because of the cloudy weather, it was a very slow day. I did my regular first day at a new location tasks, but it seemed like I had plenty of down time between activities. At one point I thought it was around 5PM only to look at the clock and see 2:30PM displayed. Usually it is the other way around and 5PM comes before I know it.

Walking around the campground I would judge it to be about half full. About half of the current occupants seem to be travelers. There are several Texas and South Dakota license plates. Both states are big domicile states for full time RVers like me. Some of the Florida license plates probably belong to full timers as well. At least I know mine meets that criteria. I think there are also a few families enjoying the Fall school break here.

The campground staff is still picking up a lot of debris from the storm almost two weeks ago. They didn’t have any trees come down but branches, sticks and some other stuff needed to be picked up. All that remains to be picked up is the small stuff. They were delayed a few days in getting started because everyone was evacuated during the storm and there was some standing water in a few areas. Overall it wasn’t as bad as I was lead to believe when I wasn’t able to make a reservation shortly after the storm.

One thing that survived the storm well are all the hibiscus bushes. There are as many flowers in bloom today as there were when I was here in August. I really like the flower and took plenty of pictures today.