Part 5 - Rocket launch, and Sebastian Inlet State Park
On Thursday night, we went with Helen, John, Bill, and Cynthia to the Patrick AFB beach to watch a late evening launch from Cape Canaveral.
Here in the distance is the initial firing of the United States Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket for NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission.
The rocket rises into the sky.
From this distance, night launches don't show much except fire.
The next day we went to Sebastian Inlet State Park and had a picnic lunch.
We visited the McLarty Treasure Museum, part of the park.
The museum is located at the spot where 11 or 12 Spanish ships laden with treasure from the New World sank just offshore in a 1715 hurricane.
Spanish armor on display in the museum.
At the bottom are two examples of bar shot, which were shot from cannon to wreak havoc with an enemy ship's rigging.
Behind the museum, facing the ocean, is a beach overlook designed to look like part of a pirate ship.
As we explored other parts of the park, we were warned by the red flag of "high surf and/or strong currents", and by the purple flag of "dangerous marine life" (jellyfish, and in some locations, sharks).
Cynthia found an eight-legged starfish.
At the jetty at the north end of the James H. Pruitt Bridge, on the ocean side, we saw numerous Brown Pelicans. . .
. . . and this juvenile White Ibis.
They have this brown coloration in their first year only, and are all white by the second year.
John, Bill, and Cynthia saw this Brown Pelican close up.