Fishing, pleasure boats return to Port Canaveral
BY DONNA BALANCIA
FLORIDA TODAY
Small fishing and pleasure boats started to return to Port Canaveral Thursday. But the port remains closed to large cruise and cargo ship.
Port Canaveral is the nation's second-busiest cruise port, based on passenger counts. Most cruise ships based at Port Canaveral now are temporarily using the Port of Miami or Port Everglades near Fort Lauderdale instead.
Some are busing passengers to those ports from Orlando International Airport and Port Canaveral.
The halt in cruise business is costing the Central Florida/Space Coast economy more than $1 million a day for every day Port Canaveral is shut down to cruise ships -- as well temporarily putting hundreds of people out of work.
"We are trying to determine a best fit in the safest manner to facilitate commerce in and out of the port in the most-efficient and expeditious way," Lt. Patrick Eiland of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment said late Thursday.
Eiland said a shoal -- a buildup of sand and shells -- was found at one section of the channel leading to the port during a survey researched jointly by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers,
The port, though, now is allowing certain smaller vessels in and out of the port.
Eiland said the Coast Guard readjusted the buoys that guide ships in and out of the channel, and the next step would be to dredge the port, but he had no start date yet.
"We don't know when the dredging will begin," he said. "But the Army Corps of Engineers is working diligently to procure a dredging operation."
Eiland said, by this afternoon, the Coast Guard will have set up a safe way to get ships in and out of the port. But dredging would have to take place before the larger cruise and cargo ship could go into the port.
"By, then, I believe we will have something different in place to allow ships in and out," he said.
Disney Cruise Line is the cruise company affected most by the Port Canaveral closing. Both of its ships -- the Magic and the Wonder -- normally operate out of Port Canaveral.
Disney is using Port Everglades until the situation at Port Canaveral is resolved.
"The service and cooperation from those at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale during this time has been incredible, and we greatly appreciate their hospitality as we work through complications from the hurricane," said
Disney Cruise Line President Karl Holz.
