20 January 2007, Pelican Roost, Naval Station Mayport, FL

On the way to Mayport, FL, we had to cross the neatest bridge...the Napoleon Bonaparte Bridge:

Then, on the other side of the bridge, the water looks absolutely crystalline in the sun!

Our next camping stop is at Pelican Roost, on Naval Station Mayport. The park is situated along the historic jetties at the mouth of the St. Johns River ship channel.

There are 29 home ported U.S. navy ships here, including the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) aircraft carrier. We were so lucky, for the third time here, to get a site right up front in the park, so that we could actually see the JFK right from our RV front window! We could also see lots of ship traffic coming in and out of the port:This is a picture of the JFK. Unfortunately, it's being decommissioned and they seem to be in the process of taking everything off of it before sailing it up to the Philadelphia Naval Station for the rest of its life (at least that's what we heard is going to happen to it). If you look closely at the right side of the picture, you can see a large crane. That's what they've been using to take the stuff off the ship. Yesterday, I happened to catch the tail end of them lifting a plane off the top deck...and, of course, I didn't have the camera ready, so I missed it! I can't believe it! It was a really cool looking thing, too!

Then, we saw lots of tug boats...and a Coast Guard ship:

Then, one day while we were here, we went into the tiny little town of Mayport to buy some fresh shrimp (they're the best ever!) and I got to take some more pictures of my favorites: the pelicans! They're really sooooo cool...and, they have fuzzy heads! This menacing-looking guy is up on a roof looking down at Peter, who is holding our bag of shrimp! Guess he's comtemplating whether or not he can get into that bag! Poor Peter! Fortunately, he didn't make any attempts!

Guess you can tell that I really like taking pictures of these guys! They don't seem to be too afraid of humans, so it's easy to get really good close-up pictures of them. They hang around the buildings here hoping to get some of the fish/shrimp, etc. as they're unloaded from the boats.

One of the other things we like to do here is to take the dogs to the beach:

The tide is out...above. This is a jelly fish that washed up on the beach...or was left when the tide went out. There seem to be a lot of them this year...we didn't notice them so much when we were down here before.

Here are our "girls": Missy and Bijou. They love it! Bijou almost got caught in a little wave on the edge of the water...and, that sent her into a "buzz"! I think the only thing they really miss when we're on the road, is their big fenced-in yard at home!