Sunday Summary #52

A Warm Welcome to 2022!

Hello ,

Welcome to Scho & Jo’s 52nd Sunday Summary. This edition of the Sunday Summary was written aboard PIVOT moored in Vero Beach, Florida.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! We hope you enjoyed time with family and friends, time to rest, and time to reflect on the past year. We find this time of year to be exciting as we’re able to dream and set the seeds for a new year ahead of us. We hope the end of year was just what you needed, whatever that may be.Be sure to read to the end where we ask for your recommendations as we cruise America's Great Loop this year!

"And now we welcome the new year.Full of things that have never been."-Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet

Last Week.

After 5 and a half weeks of non stop boating to get south to visit our families for the holidays, we made it! It was absolutely exhausting, and something we hope to not have to repeat in future travels, as we were physically and mentally drained by the time we reached our families in St. Augustine, FL. Even though we were exhausted, we are so glad that we had the opportunity to spend the holidays with them. We enjoyed the time spent with family playing games, catching up, and hanging out. Lastly, we rang in the new year by celebrating the marriage of Jen's college friend, Taylor and Dylan, as we danced the night way at their wedding.

We left St. Augustine with a guest aboard PIVOT, Jen’s mom Carol, who cruised with us south to Daytona Beach. It was fun having her aboard and sharing our daily cruising life with her.

We continued to cruise south with our buddy boat, Acadia, and have been enjoying getting back to our routines on the water. For the past few days we’ve been on a mooring ball in Vero Beach, Florida and it has been some of the BEST boat days we’ve had since purchasing PIVOT in January 2021. We’ve gone out on paddle boards to explore the nearby quiet waterways and have enjoyed a beach day sitting in the sand while reading our Kindles. It’s been magical, what we imagined boat life would be like when we initially decided to dive into boat life.

Boat jobs continue to take a major role in our journey south. With the installation of our battery monitor (

episode 188

), we’ve been able to more closely monitor our energy usage which has brought up the issue of our alternator is not running at the capacity which we had hoped. Elliot has been doing countless tests on our electrical system to make sure it’s running well. A few electrical changes later, we have alternator charging again and are running at full capacity.

This Week.

We’ll be heading south to the Florida Keys where we plan on having a work month so we can catch up on a lot of work that goes on behind all the YouTube videos. We’re really looking forward to it as we won’t be moving all that much and hope to do a lot of planning for our Great Loop THIS YEAR! We are so excited to be in 2022, the year we get to cruise around America’s Great Loop!

 Videos. 

Incase you missed it, here are all the vlogs we’ve released since our last Sunday Summary:

Exploring the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake (southbound to Onancock, Virginia)

Crossing the CHESAPEAKE BAY in November | Onancock to Hampton Anchorage

Rough Seas entering Norfolk from the Chesapeake and getting back into boat life!

 Extra. 

As we've cruised south with our buddy boat, Acadia, we've had the opportunity to collaborate on some YouTube videos with Gwen and Andy including an ICW Etiquette video which you can find here:

Intracoastal Waterway Etiquette and the Slow Pass | Episode 2 ICW Series

 Recommendations. 

We are looking for recommendations for destinations and spots along our Great Loop to go see, visit, and enjoy. It's been a real challenge for us to keep track and stay organized (amongst everything else we do) with the many wonderful recommendations we've received thus far. So we've created a Google Form to help us stay organized.

 Gratitudes. 

We are so thankful for the warmer weather and the past few days when we've been able to really dive into the things we've been looking forward to about boat life for months. Paddle boarding, going to the beach, and grilling out from the back of our boat has been amazing and something that we are deeply savoring. This time has filled our souls with a relaxing breath of fresh air while rejuvenating us from the inside out. Theres not much that can wipe this big smile from our faces.

Peace and love,Jenn + Elliot