Part 1: Palm Beach, Florida to Port Canaveral, Florida (125 miles)
On the first day of our trip going north along the U.S. East Coast, we traveled offshore from Palm Beach to Port Canaveral. Port Canaveral is a nice stop, especially if you have time to take a tour of the nearby Kennedy Space Center; or, if you are very lucky, to witness a rocket launch!
The ride was smooth and we made good progress. Coming into the channel at Port Canaveral, we saw several SpaceX boats, including those that tow the remote-controlled barges upon which the solid rocket boosters land out in the Atlantic, and the vessel equipped with a huge net designed to retrieve the nose cone fairings. Also, there are usually large cruise ships in port, as Port Canaveral is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world.
I highly recommend taking a day to visit the Kennedy Space Center [1] at Cape Canaveral, just a short taxi or Uber ride from the marinas in the port. It was amazing being face-to-face with the actual Space Shuttle Atlantis, walking under the enormous Saturn V rocket, the largest rocket ever flown, and witnessing a replay of the launch of the first crewed NASA mission to orbit the moon in 1968 at the Mission Control Room Theater. This exhibit allows you “to experience the countdown for Apollo 8 facing the actual consoles used during the Apollo launches as you see and feel the powerful Saturn V moon rocket lift off from the launch pad and blast into space.”
There is so much more to do and see; you can even meet a NASA astronaut. The bus tour will take you out to the launch pads, including those used today for SpaceX launches, and past the Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest single story building in the world, where rockets are assembled before taking them over to the launch pads. When we stopped in Port Canaveral last year, we were lucky enough to witness a sunrise launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from our boat in the marina.
It was nothing short of SPECTACULAR.
Next stop... St. Simons Island, GA!
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