# Cocoa Beach Local
> Postcards from Florida's Space Coast: surf, sunrises, rocket launches, and where to eat after. A local's guide to Cocoa Beach — new stories often.
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).
## Pages
### The guy a block from the beach
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/about/
Last updated: 2026-07-03T14:02:05.000Z
I Love Cocoa Beach is a love letter to this little stretch of Florida's Space Coast, written by someone who gets to call it home.

This is the place where you can watch a rocket climb over the Atlantic at dawn and be in the surf by breakfast. Where the sunrises are worth setting an alarm for. Where everybody's got a favorite taco spot and strong opinions about it. I started this site to capture all of it — in videos, photos, and stories — the surf, the launches, the food, the events, and the small everyday moments that make this town what it is.

**What you'll find here**

Sunrise and surf, and the best spots to catch both. When and where to watch the next launch. Where to eat, drink, and hang out — from the locals' picks to the ones worth the wait. Plus events, happenings, and plenty of video and photos from around town, because some things you just have to see.

**Who's behind it**

I'm Patrick Bruce — retired, living a block from the beach, and lucky enough to have time to do the thing I love: wander this town with a camera and share what I find. I'm no tourist board and no big media company, just a neighbor who thinks this is the best place on earth and wants you to see it the way I do. I also help run our Cocoa Beach community group, 60,000 locals, visitors, and transplants strong.

**Come along**

The best way to keep up is to subscribe. New videos, photos, and stories land straight in your inbox, free, whenever there's something worth sending. No spam, no filler. Just Cocoa Beach.

See you out there,  
Patrick
## Posts
### Blue Origin’s Record-Speed Rebuild at LC-36: From Pad Blast to Dual Pads and Hundreds of Open Jobs
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/blue-origin-lc-36-rebuild-space-coast/
Last updated: 2026-08-23T14:35:16.000Z
Jeff Bezos was out at Launch Complex 36 earlier this month shaking hands with the crew in hard hats. His post was simple: the team is moving at record speed out at the pad. Gradatim Ferociter.

That Latin motto has been Blue Origin’s thing for years. Step by step, ferociously. Right now it fits the work happening just up the coast from Cocoa Beach.

Blue Origin planted itself on the Space Coast more than a decade ago. They took the old Atlas pads at Launch Complex 36, the same ground that once sent Mariner, Pioneer, and Surveyor missions, and rebuilt the whole place from the ground up. They put a big manufacturing campus in Exploration Park right outside the Kennedy gates. Rockets get built a few miles from where they fly. That vertical integration is rare and it’s one reason the company keeps expanding here.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Blue-Origin---s-Rocket-Factory-at-Exploration-Park-2.jpg)

Blue Origin’s Rocket Factory at Exploration Park on Merritt Island, just outside the Kennedy Space Center gates. This is the main manufacturing campus where New Glenn stages are built before they head a few miles over to Launch Complex 36.

They just committed another $600 million through Project Horizon for an 830,000-square-foot upper-stage factory. The company now lists more than 4,500 employees in Florida and more than $3 billion invested across 500-plus Florida suppliers. The state and Space Florida are helping with the infrastructure. Blue Origin is the only company that both builds and launches its orbital rockets entirely in Florida.

The NASA relationship runs deep. New Glenn’s second flight carried the ESCAPADE twin probes toward Mars. The company is building the Blue Moon lander under a multi-billion-dollar NASA contract for Artemis. Their BE-4 engines also power ULA’s Vulcan, which flies national security and science missions. NASA wanted a second provider for lunar landers so it wouldn’t be locked into one company. Blue Origin is that second path.

Then there’s the competition with SpaceX. Both companies launch from the same stretch of coast. SpaceX flies more often and has the cadence advantage with Falcon and the Starship work at 39A. Blue Origin has always moved slower and more methodically. New Glenn finally flew in 2025, reached orbit on the first try, landed a booster, and started carrying real payloads. Amazon’s Leo constellation is a big customer, going head-to-head with Starlink. The two companies push each other. The Cape gets busier either way, and the beach communities feel the economic and visual benefits of more activity.

May 28 changed the near-term picture. During a static-fire test ahead of the next New Glenn flight, one of the BE-4 engines had a main LOX valve failure. The booster and upper stage were destroyed. The transporter-erector was gone. One lightning tower toppled. The blast registered on seismometers and lit up the night sky for a long way. No one was hurt. Debris was cleared in nine days of around-the-clock work. The propellant tanks, the long-lead items that take forever to replace, survived in good shape. That was a break.

Instead of rebuilding the exact same pad and waiting on a new transporter-erector, the company shifted to a hybrid approach they were already designing for the larger 9x4 version of New Glenn. Stages get mated horizontally in the integration facility, rolled out, then lifted vertical by crane on the pad. Payload goes on after the vehicle is standing. It skips a major rebuild step and should support higher cadence once they’re flying again.

At the same time they are moving forward on a second pad. LC-36A will remain the home for the current New Glenn 7x2\. LC-36B is under construction right next to it as the operational home for the bigger 9x4 vehicle. They’re also building a new Vertical Integration Facility and a Payload Processing Facility. The PPF is a partnership with the U.S. government and will support other National Security Space Launch providers on the Eastern Range as well.

Two pads plus the new stacking method should let them fly more often over time. That means more launches visible from the beaches and more steady work for local suppliers.

LC-36 has always been one of the most visible pads from Cocoa Beach and the surrounding shoreline. When the rocket is vertical, you can see it clearly on a clear day if you look north. The rebuild and the second pad will keep that skyline active for years.

Valve hardware with the fix is expected ready by the end of this month. Bezos was on site in early August watching the crews work. CEO Dave Limp has said repeatedly they still plan to fly before the year is out. The team is destacking the tower, adding access platforms, installing big new doors on the integration facility, and practicing the new stacking sequence at another complex.

While all of that is happening they are hiring. Right now Blue Origin has well over [200 open positions listed](https://www.blueorigin.com/careers/search?location=Space+Coast%2C+FL&ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) for the Space Coast alone. A big chunk of them are engineering and technician roles tied to the lunar lander work: fluids test engineers, lunar assembly and integration technicians, mechanical systems engineers, CNC programmers, composite manufacturing techs, and more. These are the kinds of high-skill aerospace jobs that keep people on the Space Coast instead of leaving for other states.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/87258071007-blue-origin-new-glenn-launch-01.webp)

Blue Origin launches NASA ESCAPADE mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida

From Cocoa Beach you can already see the cranes and activity when you look north on a clear day. The pad failure was a gut punch. The speed of the response and the decision to expand into a dual-pad complex at the same time is what people are watching now. Blue Origin’s approach has always been the long game. Right now that long game is moving faster than most expected after a night that lit up the entire Space Coast.
### The Ground the Astronauts Swam On
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/the-ground-the-astronauts-swam-on/
Last updated: 2026-08-07T01:34:41.000Z
I drive past 1300 North Atlantic a couple times a week, same as most of you. The cranes have been up for a while, the towers keep climbing, and the new Westin is finally starting to look like a real building instead of a promise. The other day I got to wondering what that piece of ground has actually been through before any of this. Turns out it might be the most Cocoa Beach story there is. Astronauts, a Holocaust survivor with a wicked sense of humor, a motel fire on opening night, and now a $420 million resort. All on the same strip of sand.

Here's the whole arc.

## Before the motels

Long before A1A, this was Ais country. The Ais lived up and down this coast for centuries. After the Civil War, freed slaves built the first settlement out here, a little community some folks called Oceanus. A hurricane in 1885 hit it hard, and by 1888 a group of Cocoa men bought up the whole tract and mostly left it to the palmetto and the snakes.

Then came Gus Edwards. He was a Georgia attorney who showed up around 1915 and became Cocoa's city attorney almost overnight. Where everybody else saw scrub, Gus saw oceanfront. He bought big, cleared the land with mules and hired crews, and planted hundreds of Australian pines. Some of those trees are still standing. He pushed hard for the first bridge, which opened in 1922, and he got the Town of Cocoa Beach officially incorporated on June 5, 1925\. He was our first mayor. Lots were going for a hundred bucks. People raced cars on the beach. The lights came on that same year.

For a long time it stayed tiny. The 1939 census counted 49 people living here. By 1949 it was up to a whopping 246\. Then the rockets showed up and everything changed.

## The Holiday Inn years, when this was the center of the universe

Banana River Naval Air Station, which later became Patrick, opened in 1939\. The first missile went up from Cape Canaveral in 1950\. Once the space program got rolling, this quiet beach strip turned into the front row for the biggest show on Earth.

The Starlite Motel opened in 1956 as the first real hundred-room place in town. Running it by the mid-fifties was a guy named Henri Landwirth, a Belgian who had survived the Holocaust and come to America with twenty dollars and not a word of English. The Mercury 7 astronauts and the whole press corps made the Starlite their home base.

Then in 1960 the Holiday Inn opened right here on this site. Around 500 rooms on close to sixteen acres of oceanfront. It was one of the first big national hotels in Cocoa Beach and it instantly became the biggest game in town. Landwirth came over to manage it. The Mercury astronauts basically lived there. Walter Cronkite and the networks set up shop. Johnny Carson stayed. When Alan Shepard flew Freedom 7 in 1961, the Holiday Inn turned into the nerve center for the entire national press. Reporters turned their hotel rooms into darkrooms. By the time John Glenn went up to orbit, the crowds out here were enormous.

And the stories from that stretch are just perfect.

Landwirth was a world-class prankster. John Glenn once complained that his room didn't have enough towels. So Landwirth called a linen company, had them deliver a literal ton and a half of towels, and stacked Glenn's room so full he couldn't get the door open. At a dinner for the Mercury and early Gemini crews, he served fried cardboard cut to look like veal and hard dinner rolls dressed up as baked potatoes, just to sit back and watch them try to eat it. Astronauts got thrown in the pool after their flights. And on the very day the Holiday Inn opened, the old Starlight Lounge across the way burned to the ground. The police came and questioned Landwirth about it. He swore he had no idea how that happened.

Across A1A, the Mercury 7 put some of their Life magazine money into the Cape Colony Inn, which opened in 1962\. Landwirth left the Holiday Inn to help run it. NASA was not thrilled about its astronauts owning a motel, so eventually they sold. Landwirth went on to partner with John Glenn on Holiday Inns over near Disney, and that Cape Colony spot became the La Quinta that's still standing today.

The Holiday Inn kept growing. It swallowed up the neighboring Ramada Inn and Wolfie's, added buildings in the mid-sixties and again in the late seventies, and stayed the big conference and tourist engine on the strip for decades.

## The long slide

Time was not kind. By the 2000s the place had aged into the International Palms Resort and Conference Center. FelCor Lodging bought it for $22.2 million in 1998\. It changed hands again around 2010, and then Driftwood Capital picked it up in October 2016 for $23 million.

By then it was rough. Between 2016 and 2019 the property racked up more than 2,100 police calls, a lot of them drug related, more than any other resort in the city. The eleven buildings, phased in from the sixties and seventies, were worn out. The stormwater situation was basically nonexistent. What had once been the beating heart of Cocoa Beach had become the problem property everybody worried about.

Driftwood spent years working with the city on height variances, zoning, and easements. Demolition of International Palms finally started in October 2023\. They broke ground on the Westin in September 2024.

## What's rising now

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--7--1.jpg)

An aerial look at the finished Westin dropped onto that stretch of oceanfront at 1300 North Atlantic. **(Rendering courtesy of Marriott)*

The Westin Cocoa Beach Resort and Spa is a $420 million project on that same 15.7 acres of oceanfront. 502 rooms, six stories, and the largest conference center on the whole Space Coast at more than 50,000 square feet inside plus another 70,000-plus outside. Eleven food and drink spots. A full spa. A surf wave pool along with the regular pools. Tennis, pickleball, a fitness center, retail, over 500 feet of direct beach access, and a big parking garage.

The design firm, Gensler, leaned into two things you'd only get here: NASA and our surf culture. So expect curving shapes and warm tones from the highway side all the way through to the beach.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--8--1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--9--1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--10--1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--1--2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--2--2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--3--2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--4--2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--5--2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/ed/2cedd99a-5281-4829-8226-24c84afae428/content/images/2026/08/Westin-Cocoa-Beach-Florida--6--2.jpg)

As of the middle of 2026, the south tower has topped out, the whole thing is roughly halfway done, and they're aiming to open in 2027\. Some reports say the second or third quarter, others are floating Memorial Day weekend. Driftwood Hospitality will run it. The projections are big: hundreds of jobs and a real lift for the whole area.

## The whole arc, on one piece of sand

So that ground went from Ais country, to a freed-slave settlement, to Gus Edwards clearing scrub with mules, to ground zero of Mercury-era Cocoa Beach, to a tired old complex nobody wanted to talk about, and now to a Westin that's trying to put this strip back on the map.

The best part to me is this. That new resort is going up on the exact spot where the astronauts got tossed in the pool, where Cronkite's reporters worked through the night, and where Henri Landwirth buried John Glenn's room in a ton and a half of towels. You could not write a better Space Coast story if you tried.

I'll be watching those towers go up every time I drive by. Now you know what they're standing on.

See you around town, Patrick
### Let's Talk About Our Beach Accesses
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/lets-talk-about-our-beach-accesses/
Last updated: 2026-07-22T12:19:26.000Z
I've lived a block from this beach for a long time, and one of the things I love most is that the accesses belong to everybody. The early morning walkers, the families dragging coolers and boogie boards, the surfers checking the swell. We all squeeze down those same little walkways between the parking lots and the sand.

Something a neighbor shared this week hit a nerve with a lot of you. She was walking back to her car up around [Arthur Avenue](https://maps.app.goo.gl/DBb4Xn1JiwbKWuAs7?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com), and she passed the group of men who tend to sit right at the access. As she went by, one of them said "here she comes," and another one said "she's never alone." She had somebody with her that day, but she made a good point. She usually goes alone, and she shouldn't have to think about her safety just to get down to the water.

I want to be careful with this, because a conversation like this can get ugly in a hurry.

So here's where I land. The beach and the accesses are public and they're for everyone, no argument from me on that. Being down on your luck isn't a crime and I'm not looking to pile on anybody. But that walkway is the way in and the way out, and it needs to stay clear enough for a wheelchair, a stroller, a kid on a bike. [And those comments?](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JYQPQyjAh/) That's not some gray area. Making a woman feel watched or unsafe on her way to the beach is not okay, no matter who's saying it or what their situation is.

You can have compassion for somebody and still expect a clear path and some basic manners. Those two things live together just fine. That's just being a good neighbor.

Now for the useful part, because there was a lot of understandable confusion about who you're even supposed to call.

It depends on which beach you're standing on. If you're in Cocoa Beach, which is Arthur Avenue and everything south of there, call the Cocoa Beach Police Department at (321) 868-3251\. They're open 24 hours. If you're up in Cape Canaveral, which covers Cherie Down Park and the accesses to the north, that's the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Their Canaveral Precinct is over at 111 Polk Ave, a few blocks off the beach, and the number is (321) 868-1113\. And if something is actually scary or getting worse in the moment, don't sit there debating it. Call 911.

Do me a favor and put those numbers in your phone now, before you ever need them. And report the small stuff too. One quiet complaint might feel like nothing, but three reports about the same access is exactly what gets an officer or a deputy swinging by more often.

I'm not going to pretend I've got this all figured out. It's a real tug of war in a beach town that keeps growing, and good people are going to see it differently. But the bottom line is pretty simple to me. Everybody gets to enjoy this beach, and everybody gets to feel safe getting to it.

Have you run into this at one of our accesses? I'd really like to hear about it. Tell me which spot, and whether calling actually made a difference. The more of us who speak up, the better we can look out for each other.

See you on the sand, Patrick
### The Best of Cocoa Beach: Surf, Food, Stays & Local Spots
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/the-best-of-cocoa-beach-surf-food-stays-local-spots/
Last updated: 2026-07-18T15:08:02.000Z
Every so often someone captures this town so well that all you can do is sit back and nod. That's exactly what happened when I watched local filmmaker **Dalton Smith** and his crew at [**NPI Productions**](https://npiproductions.tv/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) put together their Cocoa Beach tour — the surf, the food, the stays, the local spots. I didn't make a single one of these picks. Dalton did. But I've lived a block from the water here longer than I'll admit, and I can tell you: he got it right.

What I love most isn't just the beautiful footage (though it is beautiful). It's that Dalton clearly *gets* Cocoa Beach. He didn't parachute in and film the obvious. He showed the places that make this town feel like home, and he did it with the kind of warmth and energy that makes you want to grab your flip-flops and go.

So watch his tour below, and let me walk you through why I'm nodding along at every stop.

---

## He Starts Where It All Starts: The Surf

You can't tell the story of Cocoa Beach without the surf, and Dalton knows it. This is the East Coast surf capital, the town that gave the world Kelly Slater, and the waves out front are as friendly a place to catch your first ride as you'll find anywhere.

His first stop is [**Cocoa Beach Surf Company**](https://www.cocoabeachsurf.com/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) — and it's the right one. It's one of the biggest surf shops in the world, multiple stories of boards, rentals, beachwear, and enough stickers to cover a lifetime of coolers. Whether you're renting a longboard or hunting for a souvenir, this is the anchor. And the beauty of it, as Dalton points out, is that the beach is right out the back door.

He also swings by **Drift House** — apparel, skateboards, gear, and a bar where you can grab a cold one while you shop. Keep an eye on their calendar for movie nights on the back patio. And he stops at the [**Cocoa Beach Skate Park**](https://www.cityofcocoabeach.com/545/Cocoa-Beach-Skate-Park?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com), a local institution for over twenty years, with plenty for the little ones and some serious bowls (including the cradle) if you're feeling brave.

## Where He Eats & Drinks

This is the part folks ask me about most, and honestly, Dalton's list is one I'd hand a visitor myself.

He pulls up to **Long Doggers** — a Space Coast staple, relaxed, dog-friendly, and the kind of place the whole crew leaves happy. Loaded dogs, fresh seafood, and their Hatteras Red on tap, which you can only get at their locations.

[**Fourth Street Filling Station**](https://www.4thstreetfillinstation.com/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) is one of his "only in Cocoa Beach" stops, and I couldn't agree more — an old gas station turned gastro bar with over 100 craft beers, street tacos, poke bowls, and monster milkshakes. The real magic is the patio under a hundred-year-old oak with the sunset coming in. Bring the dog. Bring the kids.

When the sun goes down, Dalton finds his way to [**The Alibi**](https://www.thealibicocktailsandbites.com/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) downtown, a speakeasy vibe done right — plush seating, low light, and a smoked old-fashioned worth lingering over. And over at Port Canaveral, he lands at **Rising Tide Tap and Table**, a genuine food-lover's paradise: open-air, killer sunset views, one of the biggest beer lists around, and a burger he calls one of the best in Brevard. He's not wrong. Fun detail he catches — some of the fixtures are made from real rocket parts, and if you time it right, the back patio is a front-row seat to a launch.

## The Sweet Stuff

Two stops of Dalton's that I'd never skip either.

After a morning in the water, he recharges at **Açaí Express** downtown — fresh açaí and pitaya bowls loaded with fruit and granola. Light enough to get you back out there, good enough that you'll be thinking about it later.

And he doesn't leave out the **Florida Key Lime Pie Company** — classic key lime pie the way it's supposed to taste, sweet, tart, fresh, plus homemade ice cream and the world-famous "Cocoa Beach Crack" (a key lime yogurt pretzel that's exactly as dangerous as it sounds). Swing by on a weekend and say hi to Sweetie the alligator.

## A Little Local Character

Two spots Dalton highlights that make this town *this* town.

The **Cocoa Beach Mural Project** has quietly turned downtown into an open-air gallery — local artists, real stories, everything from marine life to space exploration. Dalton lingers on them, and I'm glad he did; it's some of the best free art on the coast.

And the [**Dinosaur Store**](https://dinosaurstore.com/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) — a Cocoa Beach original with real fossils, interactive exhibits, a reptile room with live animals, and an adventure zone for the kids. Part science, part nostalgia, all fun.

## Where He Stays

Dalton covers a stay for every kind of traveler.

For location, he points to the [**Four Points by Sheraton**](https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/mlbcf-four-points-cocoa-beach/overview/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) — right in the heart of it, surf shop practically at your feet, beach steps away.

The **Radisson Resort** at the Port brings the full resort experience: renovated rooms, an onsite restaurant, that famous waterfall pool, a free cruise shuttle, and — if you're lucky — a rocket launch from your room.

The [**Beachside Hotel**](https://beachsidehotelcocoabeach.com/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) is his family pick, with a lazy river, live music, dining, and free rentals for guests.

For a home base with more room, he tours the [**Coastal Scandinavian Retreat**](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/44073769?check%5Fin=2026-09-01&check%5Fout=2026-09-06&guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique%5Fshare%5Fid=6da07085-0dba-4dd2-a026-701736e9ad2d&ref=cocoabeachlocal.com), a beautiful modern Airbnb with a private pool, hot tub, and every beach essential waiting for you, and **Seasons in the Sun**, another gem with waterfront views, a heated pool, a game room, and kayaks and beach cruisers ready to go.

## Look Up — and Get on the Water

Dalton closes with the two things you truly can't leave without doing.

First: **watch a launch.** The Space Coast is the world's premier gateway to space, and Cocoa Beach has front-row seats up and down the coastline — the beach, the pier, Jetty Park, or right off a boat. Check the launch schedule before your trip and don't forget to look up.

And for a day offshore, he heads out with **Sea Leveler Sport Fishing** at Port Canaveral — mahi, sailfish, red snapper, even shark trips day or night. There's nothing quite like reeling one in with a rocket climbing the sky behind you.

---

## About the filmmaker

All the credit for this one goes to **Dalton Smith** — a local videographer, content creator, and the founder and creative director of **NPI Productions**, based right here in the Cocoa Beach and Satellite Beach area. If you spend any time online around the Space Coast, you've probably seen his work: Dalton is best known for the **NPI City Series** and for his high-energy surf, storm-chasing, and local adventure edits that show off this coast better than just about anyone. His company regularly partners with Space Coast brands and shines a light on the spots that make our towns special.

For the past decade, Dalton has built NPI into exactly the kind of company he imagined — one rooted in adventure and creative challenge, and built on the idea that working with friends is the best way to work. That spirit comes through in every frame of this tour, and it's backed by a talented crew: filmmaker JD Harding, project managers Sydney Sutherland and Devyn Deboer, office manager Dee Ann Allen, and social media manager Madison Smith.

If you liked what you saw, go see more of their work at [**npiproductions.tv**](https://npiproductions.tv/?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com), follow [**Dalton on Facebook**](https://www.facebook.com/dalton.smith.988/) for his latest local adventure edits, and — most of all — support the local businesses he featured. They're what make this town home.

Thanks, Dalton. You nailed it.

See you around town,

Patrick
### Drones or fireworks? Cocoa Beach can't make up its mind
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/drones-or-fireworks-cocoa-beach-cant-make-up-its-mind/
Last updated: 2026-07-18T15:06:53.000Z
Well, we asked — and it turns out we're a town divided.

After last night's drone show lit up downtown, I put a simple question to the group: should the drone show become a regular thing? Hundreds of you weighed in, and the result is about as split as it gets. Just over half of you want the fireworks back. But a solid 41% are ready to make the drones an every-event tradition. "Once in a while" barely registered — apparently we're a people of strong opinions.

---

---

I'll be honest, I didn't think it'd be this close. There's the nostalgia of a good old-fashioned boom over the water on the Fourth… and then there's watching the sky spell out 250 years of history in red, white, and blue right over our own little stretch of the Space Coast. I can see it both ways.

So keep it going. If you haven't voted, tap the poll and cast yours — then tell us *why* in the comments. We read every one. And if there's a real appetite out here one way or the other, that's worth carrying over to the city.

See you out there,

Patrick
### Tonight: 250 drones over Cocoa Beach
URL: https://www.cocoabeachlocal.com/tonight-250-drones-over-cocoa-beach/
Last updated: 2026-07-18T15:07:04.000Z
America turns 250 tonight, and Cocoa Beach is throwing it the party it deserves.

Head downtown after dark and the sky itself becomes the show — a drone spectacular lighting up the night in red, white, and blue right over our little stretch of the Space Coast. If you've never seen one of these in person, trust me: it's worth walking down for.

**Tonight — Friday, July 3 · Downtown Cocoa Beach**

Come early and make a night of it. There's plenty going on before the sky lights up:

- 🎡 Carnival midway games
- 🎶 Live music from Tidal Theory
- 📸 Photo booth
- 🧒 Kid Zone — games and activities for the little ones

**The drone show — 9:00 PM sharp**

At nine, look up. Hundreds of drones take to the sky to tell the story of 250 years of America. Grab a spot downtown, but honestly, you'll be able to catch it from all over the area too.

**Want the soundtrack?** Here's the insider move — download the [Pyrocast app](https://www.pyrocast.com/download-app?ref=cocoabeachlocal.com) and punch in **Music Code: UHDP**. It plays the music in perfect sync with the drones, right from your phone, wherever you're standing. Bring a little speaker and you've got the full experience.

Bring your friends, bring the family, bring a folding chair. Let's celebrate a little history together.

See you downtown

Patrick