Drifting & Cruising at Jetty Park EarthCache

This earthcache is located with permission in Jetty Park at Port Canaveral. The parks director would like geocachers to know that, there is a parking fee to enter Jetty Park with a vehicle (walkers and bikers are free to enter) and participants are not to disturb the sand dunes. Coordinates to the entrance gate are N 28 24.366, W 80 35.804. The coordinates for the earthcache are on the fishing pier, look for the boardwalk north of the visitors center. Jetty Park offers beach access, pier fishing, camping, a playground, and a fun place to surf!

Note: If you are going on a cruise out of Port Canaveral, YES! this earthcache can be done while on board a cruise ship as long as you have a view of the inlet. There is no physical container to find. To get your smiley for the cache, e-mail your answers for the questions below to the cache owner.

Port Canaveral is the busiest cruise port in the world!

Port Canaveral is a manmade harbor with depths ranging from 35 to 44 feet deep. Construction began in 1950 when dredging started cutting a path east from the middle of the Indian River to Port Canaveral. Most of the dredge sediment was used later to construct the Bennett Causeway that linked Port Canaveral and beaches to Central Florida.

Port Canaveral began as a port for first shrimp and oil, then moved to cargo carrying Florida's orange juice to New York. Later, cruise ships were added to the Port and since it has grown into the second busiest cruise port in the world behind Miami (2012). Within close distance of the Kennedy Space Center, the Port is also an important link in receiving, tracking and retrieving space vehicles and components. Space launches and cruise ships coming and going can both be seen from Jetty Park and are quite beautiful to behold.

Longshore Current and Beach Drift
Waves in this area along the coast of Florida break at an angle to the shoreline, which is called a longshore current. The direction of the longshore current reflects the angle of the wave approach.

Beach drift is defined as the pulling of sand particles sideways along the beach. Sand grains are transported as the waves move onto the beach. Since the waves at this location hit the beach at an angle, the sand grains are being carried to shore in that same angle. When the water retreats back to the ocean because of gravity, the sand goes straight back perpendicular to the shoreline. Due to the fact that grains are redeposited as the water retreats, the grains are actually deposited further down the beach, otherwise known as down longshore current. Because of the movement of the sand grains, the net overall movement of sand is down current. Sediment that has moved downshore is replaced by sediment from further upshore, as long as the sediment is available.

The net movement of sediment in the figure 2 below is to the south because the waves are hitting the shore from the north. If the waves changed direction and hit the beach from the south, the net movement of sand will be to the north. Net beach sediment movement, or beach drift, can change back and forth due to the shifts in wave direction.

Port Canaveral Sand Bypass Project
Being manmade, Port Canaveral inlet has the tendency to get shallower due to the fact of sand moving past the channel and filling up the harbor. To offset this problem, the Port’s north Jetty was lengthened and tightened to trap sand and prevent it from flowing into the navigation channel. Although blocking the sand fixes the issue of the harbor filling, it causes another problem as it disrupts the natural drift of sand southward.

The interruption of natural sand flowing south is estimated to cause sand losses of approximately 156,000 cy/yr on the beaches south of the inlet. To offset the losses and maintain a healthy shoreline, sand is dredged from beaches north of the Port Canaveral harbor inlet. Next the sand is pumped through a submerged pipeline that is temporarily laid across the seafloor and placed below the harbor ship channel. A hydraulic suction dredge removes the sand from one to two miles of shoreline north of the inlet and moves it through the pipeline. The sand delivered through the pipeline is placed on the beaches south where it is then shaped. The sand bypass project is done in this area every 4 to 6 years. The sand is moved in the wintertime (November through April) so as to not impact turtle nesting season.

To get credit for the cache, please answer the questions below. When answering the questions do your best. It is more important that you learn a new concept about our earth and can apply your knowledge, rather than have a precise answer.

1- Classify the tidal current at the time of your visit as “flood” (water flowing from the ocean into the bay) or “ebb” (water flowing from the bay into the ocean).

2- Which direction is the long shore current moving at the Jetty Park Beach, seen south of the inlet and the coordinates?

3- From the cache page coordinates look at the beach shoreline at the north jetty. Now look at the beach shoreline at the south jetty. Comparing the two shorelines, if the south shoreline was at 0 feet how many feet does the north shoreline stick out into the ocean?

4- Comparing the shoreline north of the inlet to south of the inlet, do you think the shore has been restored lately?

5- Do you think the restoration project in this area has been effective? Give your reasoning.

Thank you for visiting this earthcache. Please send your answers to the above questions to the cache owner. In your "found it" log feel free to write about your experience, but don't include the earthcache answers. Thanks and we hope you enjoy beautiful Jetty Park!