Google Hosted Meet-Up: Canaveral National Seashore

[TraciC]

Hi everyone! I had such a blast meeting you today and really enjoyed our beautiful beachwalk. From Sam who drove from Atlanta to Karen who drove from Tampa to @Aliciaadorada who came over from Orlando, thank you!

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

At the start of our beachwalk on Playa Linda

James telling us about the launchpads at Kennedy Space Center

Local Guides know where to get fresh fish!

Shoutout to the best friend Maggie for coming down from NYC with me!

Check out the complete album on Google Photos. 

Please don't forget to share your photos here and online using #LocalGuides and #NPS100! 🙂 

[PatPatten]

Hi Traci,

Thanks again for inviting me to join the group in this great outing. I thought you might enjoy seeing the highlight reel I made from my photos. Click on the video below.

I had a great time meeting the rest of the group and hope we can all get together again soon.

Here is the link to my Lady Lake Local Guides Community page.   

Here is the link to my Facebook community page

Here is the link to my Instagram community page

I am hopeful that you and the rest of the group might join so we can all keep in touch.

Also, I thought you might enjoy reading the review I wrote on Google Maps (directly below). I would love to read the other reviews from members of the group and hope they will post them here in this discussion. All feedback and comments of my review are most welcome. 

Imagine, for a moment, going back in time a thousand years. You're a tall, honey colored native woman living in a village along what would in the distant future become known as the Florida east coast, between Titusville and New Smyrna Beach. Walking along the shore, draped in your handmade attire of woven moss and palmetto leaves, your feet sink into the luscious warm sand. You revel in the luxury of the moment with the place all to yourself, an exotic haven with over one thousand different kinds of plants, 310 species of birds and an endless supply of fish in the sea. Feeling hot and hungry, you jump into the cool refreshing water. Standing in the surf spear in hand, with one swift blow you impale a glinting white fish that swam too close to the shore.

Eyeing you from a safe distance are a flock of red-headed, black-winged Turkey vultures waiting patiently to gobble up the soon to be discarded fish head and bones, remnants of your lunch. They have a lot of competition from the plethora of other birds anxious for a tasty morsel. You scrape the scales from the fish using a sea shell you've sharpened over time, filet and leisurely eat the raw succulent fish.

Relaxing after the savory meal, you begin to study the busy little sand crabs. Incessantly, they pop in and out of dozens of holes and dance sideways across the sand, doing whatever sand crabs do on the beach, a curious mystery indeed. The sun is bright, the day is warm, and you think to yourself life simply couldn't get any better than this.

Move forward in time and imagine you're a woman in 2016 visiting this same place. Now it is a nationally protected 24-mile long beach on the east coast of the United States. It's looks pretty much the same as it did a millennia ago, except the beach is crowded, and the people come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Surf fishing is still popular. Instead of crude spears, there are long poles planted in the sand, with fishing wire rising high over the heads of passersby and extending into the water. The enormous plants are dense and abundant, anchoring the shore from erosion. The multiple species of birds are still there, waiting to snatch up the discarded remnants left by the humans scattered along the beach.

Located on a barrier island, in the shadow of NASA and the launch pads at Cape Canaveral, the beach is dotted with orange poles to protect the baby sea turtles nesting there from being trampled upon by indifferent visitors. This undeveloped area is a combination of exquisite scenery and pristine beaches and serves as a priceless resource for scientists to study this unique riparian environment. What a thrill it was for me to visit this wild and beautiful place. It really is a national treasure and only one of ten protected seashores under the National Park System. Be sure to check it out. I think you'll find its well worth the trip!

[rtsayles]

My kind of walking tour on the beach, love the photo's @TraciC.  Glad you guys had fun!

Robby

[kandyr]

 Thank you so much for sharing the pics! We had the best time meeting all of you and hiking the beach. We went to the Merritt Island Nature center afterwards. While we were there we learned what the yellow stakes on the beach were. They are actually markers for turtle egg nests. Most have hatched by now but they keep monitoring for a bit afterwards it seems. We also learned that those "tire tracks" were in fact from sea turtles coming onto the beach. It was really cool to learn and we are going back next year in June for a night adventure when they go to watch the turtles lay the eggs so they can mark where the nests are. Maybe some of you would be interested as well? If so, I have a group where I share events and will share it there in a bit. I will post the info there when it becomes available. 

This is the Facebook group link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/961689487210990/

Instagram: Kandyr12 or the_digital_kandy

Hope to maybe see some of you again. 

Best, 

Kandy & X