This afternoon was to be shore leave, so this morning I worked on launching the dinghy. I store it in its bag on top of the coach roof. That is not working well. The zipper leaks, so water is trapped inside making a mess. One handle on the bag has started to rip in two - UV deterioration? So I will have to come up with a different way to store the dinghy on deck.

After wiping down the dinghy, the launching went smoothly. Moving the propane tank to the dinghy and attaching it also went well. But the step to unscrew the motor from the boat mount did not go well. This is the easiest step of all. Once the mount screws are loosened, they spin easily. Or not. Today they wouldn’t budge. I was pretty sure that if I applied all the force needed to break them free, the plastic handles would break off. Then not only would I be unhappy today, but all the rest of the days I owned the motor. I sprayed with WD40 and used vise grips to make my own handle. With a great deal of persistent persuasion, and spray, I was finally able to break them free. It took many turns both ways to loosen them so that I no longer needed the vise grip. From now on, mounting the motor on the boat will included WD40 and maybe not tightening them quit so tight ... maybe just really tight; instead of really, really tight.

I motored around in the dinghy looking for a place to land, but there was no dinghy dock. Then I went north under the bridge and drove around in the marina. Still nothing. I finally found a small cove right next to the highway coming off the bridge. I tied the dinghy to the guard rail. There is no foot traffic in that area, so the dinghy was safe. I asked at the marina - apparently hurricanes don’t like dinghy docks, so they (hurricanes) removed them. The place near where I was anchored that would have worked well was roped off due to hurricane damage.

Cocoa Village has a several block area of quaint shops, restaurants, playhouse, etc. A nice place to walk around as it caters to foot traffic, not cars. There was a large, old hardware store I visited, crammed full of everything imaginable. More like a dark warehouse. They were stunned when I said they didn’t have what I was looking for - a DC toggle switch.

Most of the boats anchored here were here when I arrived and it looks like will still be here when I leave.