Sunday Summary #98

Finding Balance and Exciting News!

Hi ,

Welcome to Scho & Jo’s 98th Sunday Summary. This edition of the Sunday Summary was written aboard PIVOT who is anchored near Islamorada, Florida.

Last Week.

In our last Sunday Summary, we mentioned having some upcoming guests visit us in the upcoming weeks. We enjoyed spending time with one of Jen’s best friends, Molly, who spent the weekend aboard PIVOT with us. We spent half the days usually on the flybridge, on our computers working (thank you Starlink!) and the other half of the days were exploring Islamorada, jumping in the water, and getting workouts in. We have been loving this time to slowly explore and get to know places, incorporating a more balanced routine with working out, longer Ollie walks, and watching the sunset with a sundowner.

Our next guest was Elliot’s dad, Michael, who was able to work from home while he visited us for 5 days. We had some pretty nasty weather when he first arrived with 20 knots out of the north (our anchorage is great with the exception of wind out of the north) which eventually moved around to the east and calmed down for a spectacular Saturday on the boat. Elliot and Michael took out the SUP (stand-up paddle boards), saw a lot of wildlife, watched the sunrise and sunset, and much more. It was really nice to be able to share a piece of our daily life and routine aboard the boat with family. We know this chapter of life is not going to last forever, so sharing it with the ones we love most is truly special.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on some projects behind the scenes and we are so excited to announce the opening of the Scho & Jo Store! We’ve been working countless hours to develop products that we believe would be helpful or enjoyed by others. This past week we released three products in our store:

1. All Great Loop Locks Spreadsheet - Jen organized all of the locks on the Great Loop including locations, mile markers, elevation gain or loss, phone numbers or VHF channels, and more into one large spreadsheet. If you’re planning on completing your loop and like having an easy-to-read list with relevant information, this is a great resource!

2. Looper 101 Electrical Guide - As we cruised around America’s Great Loop on a budget, we received many questions about our electrical system and what we did that allows us to stay comfortably on anchor in regards to our electrical draw. Elliot explained everything he’s learned from no boating experience to problem-solving many of the various issues that arose over the past year in this e-book. We hope this e-book gives you insight into how we rarely ran our generator while running two online businesses and were able to install the system ourselves.

3. The PIVOT Sticker Pack - We created 6 stickers that share some of the mottos, emblems, and mascots of the PIVOT crew and we hope they inspire you too.

This Week.

We expect to have a few more guests visit us in the next few weeks while we continue to enjoy our time finding a more sustainable and balanced routine. In the past month, we’ve been able to breathe after a very busy past year and are able to start dreaming about what this year is going to hold (spoiler alert: more travel). We’re excited about the videos we're editing for this week. Canada was such a special part of our Great Loop that reliving these memories makes us want to revisit Canada and explore some of these areas again. More videos and our final Great Loop Expense post that shares our grand total along with some other expenses not included in our blog.

"Balance is not something you find,it’s something you create.”-Jana Kingsford

 Videos. 

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

How To Lock a Boat (while transiting 9 locks on the Trent-Severn)

Cruising through Popular Locks on the Trent-Severn (Buckhorn to Rosedale)

 Blogs. 

As we’ve been releasing our videos going through the Trent-Severn, we received a lot of questions regarding locks. From spouses who are anxious to new boaters who are concerned about being prepared. We wrote a detailed blog post that covers what a lock is, what locking gear we use, our 5 Steps to Locking, a FREE Locking Checklist to keep at your helm, the lock agencies, and more! Read How to Lock a Boat here!

 Extra. 

We were recently interviewed by Allie and Andy from Oasis Marinas on The Boater’s Lounge podcast about our journey to PIVOT, crossing our wake, and looping on a budget. You can listen on all podcast platforms!

 From the Eyes of Ollie. 

Did you read the news? My face is on a sticker!?! They said the sticker represents my outlook on life: sitting at the bow looking for dolphins, taking naps in the shade of my "clubhouse" (read: fly bridge), and watching every sunset. I make sure to enjoy the little things in life while my parents work all day. They can be really boring although they did take me to a coffee shop and brewery this week where I made a lot of new friends. We’ve been going for walks and runs in the morning so I come home and sleep in my clubhouse for a few hours.

 Gratitudes. 

We have been in this same spot for just over a month and have been loving it! It’s wild for us to think we will have spent an entire month in this spot. We haven’t kept PIVOT in one location for a month, since November 2021 when we left Crisfield, Maryland after Elliot’s wrist break. Since then, we've moved every month for the past 16 months. Wow! This past month has given us exactly what we need: time and space to breathe. This month has turned our anxiety about the work ahead of us into confidence to face the mountain of work and the mental clarity to tackle it one video at a time, one task at a time, one day at a time. This past week was wildly overwhelming to set up our store with several late nights, but we are so excited to be getting into a groove that works well for us.

Peace and love,Jenn + Elliot