We moved across the ICW to the new Ft Pierce Marina (Causeway Cove) and settled in for the week of the work on the bow/anchor area. Other than working, some more unpacking, and receiving many packages, not much of note happened, other than it being the worst week of rain we’d seen in perhaps the last year…which of course made it difficult for the project (fiberglass work on the bow) to take place. We of course experienced a few days of delay, which meant that the folks at Cocoa Village Marina were getting a little annoyed at us at having filled up their mail room already, despite us not being there on our scheduled arrival date.

The work was finally completed early Sunday afternoon and we were able to cast off and head north. We have planned to spend the next month in one place – Cocoa Village – in order to receive all the packages we need for completing the primary boat projects, and also waiting out the winter in the warmer southern weather before we attempt to Loop again.

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So far, we have been at Cocoa for over a week now, and are going through the project checklist. David finished his office area with a temporary desk to which he has mounted his enormous monitor and installed new ceiling lights in the room. The new Garmin unit has been installed in the dash upstairs. I mounted our burgee poles on the bow. We have a temporary internet solution mounted (waiting for the new mast to arrive into which we’ll install the antennas). I installed some slide out drawers in the kitchen for accessing our alcohol and have completed various other internal organization projects. David replaced the blown speakers in the flybridge, installed the new radio unit, rewired all speakers to attach to the new unit and we installed a new sound cable from the TV to the radio unit so we can use the boat sound system for the TV (that was quite a difficult wire run and required most of the starboard stern corner wall and ceiling panels to be removed!!). We figured out a solution for storing the bikes. Phew!

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We also had a bit of a disastrous first dingy delivery – they were not anticipating us needing a water delivery and the nearest boat launch ramp was a mile away. It was raining and pretty windy, and one of their guys – with no jacket, or life jacket – had to drive the dingy over to the marina. He was not happy! David was on non-interruptible calls, and unfortunately he and I could not figure out how to get the boat onto mounts in the platform properly, despite me standing on the submerged platform, peering under the boat!. We tied it off to the end of the swimstep for David and I to figure out later, but as he was handing everything off to me, we noticed that the bilge pump was pumping water into the storage space under the seat…not good! After a few panicked phone calls to his Dad (family business), they decided that he needed to drive the boat back to the ramp and they would take it back to the shop for repairs. I loaned him some lines and a life-jacket and he went on his way! Over the weekend they were able to get everything fixed up and David handled a smooth delivery yesterday, so now we have a dingy!

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On Saturday, after a long day of projects, we decided to head into town to the “Hofbrauhaus” (not its actual name) at the recommendation of some other Loopers. They had a large outdoor seating area and very loud club music was playing when we arrived. Shortly, a performer came out on to the stage and began playing polka music while a couple of people danced. He was actually pretty entertaining, even though the music was so loud we could barely hear each other talking and the food was amazing. We will probably go back there :).

We continue to receive a steady stream of packages and the boat is filled with tools and boxes. We hope to get quite a few projects done this weekend, so perhaps soon we’ll have a live-able space :).