Chapter 9.
The next morning a stretch limousine from The Cocoa Beach Hilton arrived. It picking up all four of them, and took them on a one & half hour drive down the B line motorway to Merritt Island, and then onto Cocoa Beach where they would stay for a week. The following week they would return to Orlando and their rooms in Disney World.
The Hilton was nice, but not as much fun as Disney World. The views from their balconies were pleasing, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. To their left they could see Cape Canaveral, and the Space Shuttle. The concierge at Disney had arranged this trip for them, to coincide with a night launch of the Space Shuttle. They spent the rest of their day exploring the surroundings; they visited the world famous "Ron Jon's" surf shop. They took a walk onto Cocoa beach's old wooden pier, and after a few minutes of watching the surfers paddling out to sea, Sue noticed a large dark shadow just beneath the surface of the water, it was following a surfer, shouting at him, jumping up and down, waving, trying to get his attention and warn him that there was a bloody big shark behind him. The surfer just waved back thinking they were just having fun saying hello. To the relief of everyone the shadow slowly veered off and disappeared into the depths. The surfer, none the wiser, carried on his merry way.
In anticipation of the shuttle launch that night, they had an early dinner, and then made their way to the rooftop bar of the hotel. It was a full moon, and the weather was perfect. Warm with only a slight breeze. There was at least twenty people on the roof, most of whom were holding drinks, there was one guy with a telescope on a stand, and another one with a high powered camera on a tripod.
The ground began to shake as in the distance to their left, a bright orange light appeared, skirted by a mountain of smoke, a crackling sound came closer and closer until they could hear nothing else. As the shuttle reluctantly accepted defeat, it was forcibly propelled from its resting place. It fought gravity all the way, finally succumbing to the might of the two giant booster rockets. It rose higher and higher into the night sky, the crackling became unbelievably loud. An amazing, sight unfolded in front of them. The Shuttle crossed in front of them and became perfectly silhouetted against the backdrop of a wonderful crystal clear full moon.
Stuart was the first to mention it, "Oh shit, if only we had a camera, what a picture that would have made."
"Hang on I'll ask that guy if he got the shot." On Jeff's way over to the guy with the camera, everyone was still looking up into the night sky, two minutes into the flight a further flash came from the space shuttle and a giant ring of fire started to fall to earth.
There were ooh's and aah's.
"That must have been the booster rocket" said Stu as if he knew all about space ships and shuttle launches.
It turns out that Stu was right. They were the booster rockets. He'd been reading up on shuttle launches.
Just then Jeff returned from the guy with the camera, "He thinks he's got it, if he has he's going to leave a copy at reception for us."
That night, at the rooftop bar, the talk was all about the launch and space shuttles. Talking to various people, they found out, that out at sea, sitting in the darkness there are any number of salvage vessels just waiting for these booster rockets to hit the water. They were told they were worth $millions to the salvage crews, and if they we're near the inlet canal at Cape Canaveral in the next couple of days, they might see a boat bringing one back in.
During the next few days they took various trips down to the everglades and Gator Parks. In the Everglades they went on air boat rides, saw many alligators and at one point they even saw a wild bear. At the gator park they had a chance to hold a large yellow python called Monty, but only Jeff and Sharmini took that opportunity. Stuart and Sue did however hold a couple of baby alligators, maybe because their jaws were taped closed. They had a great time. Even managing to see one of the booster rockets from the space shuttle being bought up the canal. They couldn't believe the size of the thing, it was as big as a house. A pelican had trouble landing on one of the jetty posts, and for a split second touched down on Jeff's head. "They all laughed at Jeff." An old sea dog of a woman had a boat full of clams and whilst off loading her catch she was offering them to passersby. Sue didn't fancy any of that, but the other three tried them. It was only Sharmini who managed to swallow hers; the guys both had to spit theirs out.
After a week of fun by the sea they reluctantly left the Hilton and the coastal resort of Cocoa Beach. But deep down they were looking forward to returning to their rooms at Disney World. They were looking forward to visiting Epcot and Universal Studios.