"Bienvenidos a Miami"

That's right we are Miami bound! Let the maxing and relaxing finally begin. We left Cocoa Village Marina three days ago and it feels wonderful to be on the move again. While we were there James' parents were able to come and visit us - it was great to see them and that they could check out the boat! We spent a lovely morning exploring the town of Cocoa and sampling some seasonal local honey.

Miss Kelly, my favourite Marina Manager

It was a throughly exhausting month at the marina but well worth it - we finally love our boat and it feels like home :) The list of what we accomplished in the month was pretty impressive - no wonder we're currently sleeping 10 hours a night! We attended a marina potluck a couple of nights before we left and everyone rushed over to us when we arrived to comment on the "twenty hour" days we had been working. I think people thought we were crazy. Many nights people wandered over to the boat saying "you guys are gonna kill yourselves you need to rest"! I've included a list of what we did simply because it makes me feel good to look at it ;)

1. Waterproofed, taped, and stiched back together our canvas enclosure so now when it rains we stay dry - how novel! We tried to get the whole thing replaced but there was a 6 month waiting list everywhere we tried.
2. Changed out all our sanitation hoses and installed a new septic tank - smells like a dream in here now.
3. Re-bedded the hatch above our bed so now when it rains it doesn't leak and we can still sleep in our bed!
4. Removed the old name from our boat and put our new name on! Goodbye maroon and mustard yellow cursive on our transom and goodbye to all the Highland Light problems - we are officially NOMADS now!!  
5. Cleaned the dingy and applied our Transport Canada Registration number so we are now legally driving that thing around. 
6. Fixed our captains chair so we no longer take our life in our hands when we hit a wave.
7. Sanded down the teak around the cockpit rail so it's no longer cracked and multicoloured - just need a coat of finish on there now
8. Installed screens for all our hatches - the Georgia swamp inspired this.
9. Painted our cowling vents white
10. Used an actual deck cleaning product and scrubbed the hell out of the deck - it looks clean for the first time.
11. Replaced the blower for the engine so we don't have to motor with the engine room doors open and can now hear each other speak when the engine is on
12. Installed a new starting solenoid so we don't have to start the day by hitting the engine with a screwdriver
13. Replaced the automatic bilge pump - now if we spring a leak the pump will automatically come on like it is supposed to and alarm to let us know it's pumping water
14. Replaced the manual bilge pump
15. Rebuilt the fresh water pump and tightened all the connections and replaced some of the hoses meaning the pump can now pump water from our water tanks so we have a reliable source of fresh water - very important
16. Replaced the faucets in the galley (kitchen) and both heads (bathrooms). They all leaked and were very ugly. Unfortunately this "simple" project turned into four days of hell.  The Endeavour is one of the boats that were built with polybutalyne pipes - a product that is no longer on the market and the company has long since been out of business since many home owners sued them. Basically the pipe fittings cracked as we took the faucets off and we had to buy new pipe and run them in some impossible to reach areas.
17. Became Amazon Prime's best customers for a couple of weeks. We fully stocked this boat with supplies, home decor, material to repair almost anything and lots more!
18. Had our "New York Storm Night from Hell Ripped Jib" fixed! 
19. Changed all the bathroom accessories from yellowed plastic to chrome - not sure how long that will last in the salt air but it looks pretty now. Hung shower curtains and towels and made a real bathroom.
20. Finally attached our swim ladder so we can have guests over without worrying they will break limbs.

The "GuestBathroom"

Guest Shower  

New Bathroom Fixtures and Freshly Oiled Wood

We finally have our own Identity!!

There were honestly so many other little things I can't even remember them and I'm sure you all stopped reading at bullet point three anyway. There are many, many, many other things we have on our "to do list" but the pressure is off and we can whittle away at that list when we need a break from the beautiful beaches in the Bahamas ;)

Manatee at the Marina 

Fellow Nova Scotian's Waving us off from the Marina:)

Leaving the marina - no more dodger vinyl blowing in the wind

Relaxing Boat Dinner

Early morning fishing

Swimming at Fort Pierce

The plan now is to spend a couple of days in Miami: yoga, beach, shopping and gorging ourselves on Cuban food are all on the agenda.  We were hoping to reach Miami this evening but the current has been against us the past two days and we are making terrible time so we may not arrive until tomorrow. We ordered some new cockpit cushions online and we are picking them up when we arrive - very curious to see how they turn out! From there we are just waiting out some favourable winds and weather to make the crossing to Bimini, Bahamas!

Clouds and sunrise near Melbourne, FL

Back in Business

Now I know many of you will have un-bookmarked me (Tracy) or may fear we have sunk so just a quick post to allay your fears. Since our last blog post we spent a wonderful few days in Charleston - walking around admiring the architecture, eating delicious foods, and doing a little shopping.

Charleston, SC

St. Simon Island, GA

From there we headed down the ICW to Georgia

ICW, Georgia

where we went back onto the Atlantic and headed to St. Simon's Island: An old English colony that used to have rice and cotton plantations and is today a very pretty island full of touristy shops. We then headed to Savannah where we ran out of gas in a swamp and had to spend the night anchored barely off the ICW channel being eaten alive by all sorts of bugs. After we finally figured out how to bleed an engine all way through when there is absolutely no fuel in it, we headed to a fuel dock to fill up and then onto San Fernandina beach which meant we made it to Florida!!! We spent James' birthday here going out for some of the best pizza we've ever had and eating it in a beautiful courtyard.

When your birthday morning is spent in a swamp the decorations get a little shady 

The Birthday boy enjoying lunch

Not a bad way to spend a birthday!

We had hoped to go back into San Fernandina the next day but the weather was so rough and the waves were so big that we got in our dingy and immediately realized it was a terrible idea and got back on the boat!

Cummberland Island, Georgia 

St. Simon's Lighthouse

We spent two nights at the city mooring balls in St. Augustine which I think must be the coolest city in Florida. It was founded in the 1500s by the Spanish and feels like you are in Spain! Tiny streets with cobblestones, massive Spanish inspired fortress-like buildings, and great food! I spent the whole time craving massive espresso based beverages and pastries which James pointed out was because it felt a little like you were in Europe. Except in true Florida style it has a definite Disney feel to the place - the old school house has a dressed up, talking mannequin inviting you in!

St. Augustine

St. Augustine Sunset

Then we finally made it to our Florida destination - Cocoa!!! We are here at the Marina for a month to get lots of jobs finished and make some improvements to our boat and make it feel like it's ours. The whole way down from New York our mantra has been "we just need to make it to Florida" and now we have!!!

I guess our blog wouldn't be our blog without an embarrassing story so here it is... Our first day when we arrived at the marina we were exhausted. We'd been pulling some really long days to get here and our supplies were pretty low. We arrive and are greeted by really friendly staff and fellow boaters who inform us that there is a potluck that night at the marina. We thought it would be a great way to meet some new people so we headed into town in search of something edible to bring - which was a dozen donuts since everything was either closed or needed to be preordered. We got back to the marina and headed to the showers in the main building to get ready. At the end of our dock is a massive old style paddle steamer. I go off to the shower and have this glorious hot, high water pressure "land shower" and am in a bit of a happy daze when I'm finished - I'm clean and I'm looking forward to our pot luck dinner.  At the gate back to our dock is a bridal party - the bride, the father of the bride, some bridesmaids and the wedding co-ordinator. I say "congratulations" and smile and then say excuse me to get around them and back to our boat.  As I'm walking down the dock the paddle steamer is at the end and it suddenly dawns on me that the dock is acting as an aisle and I have interrupted the bridal procession walking back to my boat with a towel on my head!! The photographer stopped taking photos and the paddle steamer is now full of guests who are all staring at me like "what the hell is this girl doing"?? To either side of me are all the boats at the marina who are getting ready for the potluck and have come out on deck to watch the procession. I can't turn back because the bride is behind me so I just put my head down and made a beeline for my boat. At first I felt terrible and then I thought ... why didn't ANYONE say "can you wait a minute the wedding has started"?!?! To whoever that bride and groom are I'm sorry and congratulations!

Our home for next couple of weeks

Well we've been at the marina for two weeks and have already accomplished a lot! Now as you know our boat has had some terrible smells and James and I agreed it was time to put an end to that. We ripped all the old sanitation hoses out and replaced them and installed a new septic tank - it was a throughly revolting 4 days but it is so much nicer in here!!! As an aside did you know that saltwater and urine make shale - as you cut the pipes to get them out rocks falls out. Disgusting. We found someone to repair our badly ripped sail! He had to cut the side off that was ripped and resize it but we're back to two headsails! We have also become Amazon's best customers as we have been busy procuring lots of boat supplies and some creature comforts - thank you IKEA Orlando :) We now have bedsheets, plates, glasses, bowls, even a carpet and a few Christmas decorations. Once the boat is all fixed up I will share some photos of where we live.

We took a little break from the renos and went to visit friends for Thanksgiving. It was delightful to be around friends that feel like family and have many home cooked meals - Thanksgiving was a little too good to us we need to get back on the water and burning some calories. While we were visiting our friends we went to a "resort" which I think was just a massive hotel with lots of activities but we had a very relaxing swim and pool side nap and got rejuvenated for the rest of our boat improvements.

Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving Dinner

Taking it easy at Gaylord Palms Resort

We are are the marina for another two weeks if anyone wants to send fan mail, gifts, monetary donations to keep the blog (and us) alive, please let me know and I can give you the address.

Boat Baby Gabe