A Fun Evening

Last night, we had double duty with the Christmas Boat Parade at 6:30, then the Shuttle NIGHT launch at 8:47.

We went to the dock and caught the boat parade. I don't have a long lens, so I can't do justice to some of the boats in the parade, but here's a couple of photos from the dock of 2 boats that were dressed up nicely.





We participated in a boat parade back in NC with the Grampian in 2003. It was fun but very cold.

The Shuttle Launch was spectacular. Simply amazing. This time we went to the top of the Port Orange Bridge for an unobstucted view of the horizon. The whole southern sky lit up like it was daytime as the shuttle fired (but did not liftoff or come into view) for about 20 seconds. Then, the shuttle came into view and just streaked across the sky. It was easy to see the solid rocket boosters separate from the shuttle and begin falling toward earth. The shuttle continued on - looking like a star moving across the sky.

The Grampian Aground

I drove by the Port Orange Causeway this evening and saw the Grampian (the boat I sold last fall) sitting abeam the wind and moving like she was aground.

I turned around and came back for a closer look and for sure, she was aground and with the strong NE wind - she was listing over to leeward during the gusts.


I remembered the last time I'd looked at her in the marina, I noticed that he didn't use any chafing protection on the docklines. From my vantage point, I couldn't see any mooring line hanging from the bow, so my guess was that he's put her out to anchor with out any chafe protection. Then, this nasty blow we're having right now came along and the boat simply sawed through the mooring line.

It took a while, but I found the house of the guy I had sold her to and let him know she was aground. I asked him if he's used any chafing protection and he said he had it in his car - and was going to put it on during his next trip out.

She shouldn't have any real damage of any sort as long as he can get her pulled out while the tide is up. Luckily, he has towing insurance.

No Shuttle Launch

We drove to the New Smyrna Beach south causeway last night to watch the shuttle launch. There wasn't high hopes for it actually launching due to low clouds.

I'd taken the SLR with me to see if I could get a photo of it's streaking across the sky. Of all the photography I've done in my life - I've never taken a long exposure night shot. My buddy Jeff O'brien is a wonderful photographer and I've seen a number of the night shots he's taken, so I asked him for some advice on how to take a good shot of the shuttle.

No shuttle launch, but I did take a quick 15 second exposure on the bridge of cars going by.

Our Shuttle Plan

We had planned to take the sailboat down to titusville tomorrow and anchor out to watch the night shuttle launch tomorrow night. Unfortunately, we have a front coming through and we'll have 20+ knot winds on friday and I don't want to spend all day coming back from there into 20 knot winds - SO we decided to just take the boat out for a few hours tomorrow and then drive a ways south to watch the shuttle launch.

The problem is that the weather seems to be deteriorating and it's possible that the shuttle may not be able to launch.

We'll see.