160 nautical miles
When I woke up we were in the ocean, passing the Kennedy Space Center. Dad was still asleep. The wind had picked up and clocked 180 degrees overnight so that it was a steady following breeze from the North. We rolled out the jib to help stabilize the boat in the 3.5 ft waves.
On our way into Cape Canaveral, we saw 3 Disney cruise ships anchored just outside the channel. Disney built its main cruise ship loading docks in Cape Canaveral, which we passed once we were in the channel. We also passed by NASA retrieval boats that collect various pieces of shuttles, rockets, and more that crash in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral. There was even a nose cone resting on land!
We docked at the city wharf and quickly called an Uber to take us to the Kennedy Space Center. Once there, we bought tickets and entered the park. When we first walked in, there was a garden with lots of life-sized rockets facing the sky. To our right was a building honoring every single astronaut to fly for NASA. When we walked farther in we saw lots of Mars-themed decorations, restaurants, and stores. There was an iMax movie theatre and an indoor playground too. Right past the space diner was a bus loop for tours around the whole space center outside of just the tourist park. Our first stop was Playground Planet, an indoor playground for kids. There were lots of suspended tunnels crisscrossing the building with games scattered around the web and slides branching out from various tunnels. After climbing around for a while we went to a different building.
The next building we went to was based around the space shuttles. At the front doors, they had a full-sized replica of the rockets and fuel tanks that attach to space shuttles. Inside, they had a cool "initiation" process. First, they let a big group into the first room. We watched a short video about the purpose of the space shuttles. At the end of the video, a pair of doors under the viewing screen opened and we went into a room surrounded by a bunch of projecting screens. They started playing another video about the journey space shuttles. At the end, they rolled up the screen and the Atlantis shuttle was hanging right in front of us! They had removed the top so you could see inside the shuttle. It was neat to see its layout and design.
The building had multiple floors with lots of different exhibits, simulators, and more. We wandered around the vast museum, exploring exhibits and interactive games before meeting up for the launch simulator. The launch simulator was awesome! We started by watching a short video before getting onto the simulator. Once everyone was strapped into their seat the doors closed. First, they turned the simulator vertically to the actual launch angle of the rockets. Then they counted down until take-off, with all of the sounds, visual cues, and movements/feelings of an actual launch (plus a whole lot of shaking!). Astronauts helped create the simulator so that it could be as similar as possible to a real launch. Cyrus and Clarke laughed the whole time!
Once we finished with the museum, we called an Uber and went back to the boat. We decided to stay the night at the wharf instead of moving to another anchorage. We felt it was only fitting to watch Hidden Figures. It was my 4th time watching the movie but it's so good that I could watch it over and over!