Visiting Florida 2017

27 Aug 2017 By Lyuda

Dave and I visit Florida every year, because we have family there. We always have a nice time in Florida, but we were looking forward to spending some time on the beach as well. It is August, the warmest month of the year, which means that water in the ocean is incredibly warm at this time and the beaches are just beautiful there.

Our flight to Florida was in the early morning. We caught a beautiful sunrise at Reagan National Airport (DCA).

On Monday, August 21, 2017, all of North America was treated to an eclipse of the sun. Anyone within the path of totality could see one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights – a total solar eclipse. This path, where the moon completely covered the sun and the sun’s tenuous atmosphere – the corona – could be seen, stretched from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path could still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun’s disk. The last time the contiguous U.S. saw a total eclipse was in 1979. Below is a picture of the total solar eclipse phases from NASA’s website.

In Central Florida 88% of the sun was covered at 2:51 PM. The eclipse began at 1:19 PM, blocking a small corner of the sun. The maximum coverage happened at 2:51 with the eclipse ending at 4:14. This is a partial solar eclipse at its peak that we could see in Central Florida.

We used these “eclipse glasses” (special-purpose solar filters) to look directly at the partially eclipsed sun, which worked very well.

We spent some time on the beach and we did enjoy it very much. Water was so warm and just take a look at this gorgeous white sand.

Daytona Beach has wonderful beaches and all necessary beach facilities. Also, you can just park the car right on the beach.

A yellow ice-cream truck behind me was selling ice-cream and various snacks on the beach.

Pelicans. We saw so many of them this day.

That ocean was incredible. The water was full of schools of fish and the pelicans were catching fish all over the place. It was pretty entertaining. I wish we have brought our camera from the car to the beach.

Nice light waves.

Beautiful clouds.

We stopped for lunch in one of our favorite restaurants on the beach – The Ocean Deck. Can’t beat this location and the food is always good here.

It was so nice and relaxing: having food, enjoying the view, the sun and the light breeze.

The pier near The Ocean Deck. It was a weekday, so the beach wasn’t crowded at all. I think it never happens in Virginia Beach; it is always so crowded.

Here, we are on the beach in Daytona Beach Shores. Water was pretty rough that day and I was burned a little, so a T-shirt with long sleeves saved my day.

Nice beach there too.

This is Flagler Beach with mostly orange sand. There is a restaurant on the pier with a nice ocean view.

This beach was damaged badly during the latest hurricane, therefore some stones were brought here to re-enforce it. A1A, the road next to the beach, was also damaged badly; it was restored by now.

Nice morning.

A bird and a wave.

The same beach in the afternoon on a different day.

We stopped here at the Anchor Flagler Beach restaurant to have some seafood. Dave and I used to liked this restaurant (it was called Fisherman’s Net back then).

The oysters and clams were delicious here. Also, it is a cute restaurant. 🙂

While driving to the local supermarket, we saw the cutest bike passenger.

Thanks to Dave’s older brother, we discovered the Hammock Dunes beach in Palm Coast, about a 7 minute drive for us. Really nice, clean and quiet beach. We tried to see the sunrise, but it was cloudy that day. We still had a good time and a long walk on the beach (sand was nice and firm there).