Canaveral National Seashore

Today's adventure was at Canaveral National Seashore.  Its name has an old history.

The Spanish conquistador, Ponce de León, played a huge role in the history of Florida - perhaps a larger role than most of us realize.  In 1493, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on Columbus' second voyage to the Americas. He and his family then settled on an island in the Caribbean named Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic). He became a military commander at this post and was appointed deputy governor.  In 1506, he discovered a nearby island named Borinquen. While there, he found large deposits of gold. Soon after his discovery, he left the island. He returned in 1508 on orders from the King of Spain to explore and colonize the island. He renamed the island Puerto Rico. He was the island's governor for two years until the king replaced him with Columbus' son.  To ease the pain of replacement, the King of Spain ordered Ponce de León to sail to what is now Florida to search for new lands and treasures. Ponce de León had also heard of a mythical fountain of youth. Indians spoke of a legendary, magical spring whose water was believed to make older people young again. He explored many areas, including the Bahamas and Bimini, for both gold and the mythical fountain, but he never found either.

In late March of 1513, his ships landed on Florida's east coast near present-day St. Augustine. He claimed this beautiful land for Spain. Since he had discovered this country of lavish landscape and beautiful beaches, he was entitled to name it. He named it "La Florida," or "place of flowers." Continuing his exploration, he sailed down the coast. He encountered some rough currents at one point and named the area "Cape Canaveral" which means “Cape of Currents.”  As a result, Cape Canaveral has the second oldest Spanish name of any place in North America.  Only Florida itself has an older Spanish name.

As it happens, Ponce de León continued down the east coast of Florida and along the keys until he arrived at an island that had many turtles. He named the island Dry Tortugas because there was no fresh water on the island and “tortugas” means “turtle” in Spanish.  We've visited the Dry Tortugas, and that is another story that you can find here.

We had some repairs to do on the RV this morning, so we didn't get started on today's outing until about 1:00 pm.  As a result, we didn't have a chance to bicycle along Biolab Road,which the ranger at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge told us is an excellent trip for viewing wildlife.  We decided instead to focus on the main features of Canaveral National Seashore.

Canaveral National Seashore was established in 1975, to act, along with Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, as a buffer to what is now the Kennedy Space Center and the Air Force Base on Cape Canaveral.  Despite the fact that part of the reason for establishing these two natural facilities was related to the space complex to the south, nevertheless both the National Seashore and the Wildlife Refuge are spectacular for their natural beauty and the migratory waterfowl that call them home through the year.

Here the ubiquitous NPS sign greeted us as we entered the national seashore:

The seashore spreads south to north between Mosquito Lagoon on the west and the Atlantic Ocean and Playalinda Beach on the east.  Here is a view of Mosquito Lagoon from Eddy Creek Boat Launch:

All is not pristine in the seashore, however, as we learned when we reached the northern end of Playalinda Drive.  As in other places in the Wildlife Refuge, we found a former missile silo - remnant of the Cold War --

-- along with a radar facility that presumably coordinated the missile impoundments that dot Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island.  Here, Mosquito Lagoon provides a beautiful background to the radar facility:



As we pedaled, we stumbled upon two more armadillos, foraging for bugs in the grass and vegetation along the road:

Having completed our cycle trip on Playalinda Drive, we returned to our parking lot - one of 13 along the beach - and crossed the dunes on a boardwalk to the beach:

The beach had a reasonable number of visitors today - not crowded, but populated, and we could see many of the visitors enjoying the beautiful, sunny day on the sand:



The water was a beautiful blue-green reflection of a nearly-cloudless sky.  What clouds there were scudded along the horizon wearing grey-pink silk colors.  A seagull sought to dominate the waves and clouds:

Because this national seashore does not have nearly as many visitors as some other beaches, many shells and other beautiful flotsam decorate the beach and have not been scrounged by other beachgoers.  Here is what remains of a conch shell, showing little of its original coral and flesh colored skin, but rather the blue-grey of its spiny bones:

Also below, rose, pink and white decorate this shell we found on the beach:



Above, seagulls perform their gymnastics on the air currents --

-- and, somewhere in between, we humans linger in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown:

We imagine mermaids just beneath the waves.  We see fairies and demigods flying just above the waves.  We see the seashells decorating children's pails and palms.  We see other couples digging the sand and shells with their toes.  We see fishermen contemplating the surf.  We see the endless tide of life of which we are a part.  We know why this day was made.