Cocoa Beach pier

Saturday
We were on the road just before 10 am, since that was when we had to be out of our accommodation. Today, we were heading across Florida to Cocoa Beach on the east coast for 6 nights, largely to go birding at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which occupies the other part of the island to NASA, and visit Canaveral National Seashore. Last time we had visited several years ago, we had stayed in Titusville, the closest town to Merritt, but we weren’t very impressed with that, so this time, since we were staying a bit longer, we decided to stay further south in Cocoa Beach. The drive took us over 3 1/2 hours, skirting just south of Tampa, which was quite congested as it was their Gasparilla Pirate Festival, and then south of Orlando. Our accommodation in Cocoa Beach is a small one bedroom apartment on the coast. I say on the coast, rather than on the beach, as whilst we can hear the ocean, we can’t see it from our ground floor apartment, since there is a low dune in the way, but there’s a short boardwalk, and then you’re on the beach! Having made a cup of tea, we went for a walk on the beach, since we hadn’t had much exercise. In the distance you can see Cocoa Beach pier, and if look carefully a little to the right of the end of the pier, you can just make out the NASA buildings beyond, way in the distance. It’s not a great quality photo as it was just taken on Roger’s phone - I hadn’t thought to take my phone or camera with me!
Step count: 9,539