Author: Elliot Schoenfeld

  • How to Travel through Hell Gate to Savannah

    How to Travel through Hell Gate to Savannah

    Traveling through Hell Gate to Savannah required planning. Hell Gate is a portion of the Intra-Coastal Waterway in Georgia near mile marker 601. It is not long but it sure is narrow. As you can see above, there is 0 margin for error. A little off of the channel and you will be aground. For…

  • Boating through Mud River on one of the toughest parts of the Great Loop

    Boating through Mud River on one of the toughest parts of the Great Loop

    Our 4th day on America’s Great Loop took us up Jekyll Island through St. Simons Sound on our toughest cruise yet. It wasn’t tough because of weather, or unexpected events, rather this part of the Great Loop took us through some of the shallowest and narrowest portions of the Great Loop. We chose to leave…

  • Anchoring at Sharktooth Beach, Jekyll Island

    Anchoring at Sharktooth Beach, Jekyll Island

    Day 3 of our journey on America’s Great Loop was pretty much all we ever hope for… We woke up early to catch sunrise in Cumberland Island National Seashore and it was special getting there before the majority of the tourists. Since its an island, the only way to the island is by boat and…

  • An Insane Storm Hits us at Cumberland Island

    An Insane Storm Hits us at Cumberland Island

    Our second day on America’s Great Loop was also our first overnight storm at anchor on Pivot! Most of the foul weather we’ve seen, has been at a marina. Either at Gibson’s Dry Docks in San Mateo, Florida or the Green Cove Springs public dock it hasn’t been that bad just sitting through the weather.…

  • We started the Great Loop!

    We started the Great Loop!

    Today we finally start our adventure on America’s Great Loop! Pivot is our 1989 Marine Trader and we are starting the loop in Fernandina, Florida. We first heard about America’s Great Loop back in August 2019 after we got back to the US after quarantining. My father had heard about the loop in some magazine…

  • Boating through Jacksonville to start the Great Loop

    Boating through Jacksonville to start the Great Loop

    Pivot is finally venturing out of the St. Johns River onto her home for the next 3 months! The Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW)! As you probably know, we are taking Pivot and the Scho and Jo crew on a journey around America’s Great Loop. We will be sharing more details in the future regarding the Great…

  • Making the Decision to Leave on the Great Loop

    Making the Decision to Leave on the Great Loop

    The journey to this point was not a straight line for us. After being locked down in India, we weighed our options and bought this old Marine Trader Trawler, and then spent time fixing and learning the real life details for boat life. Do we feel confident about living on the boat? Definitely not. We…

  • Cruising up the St. Johns River back to Palatka

    Cruising up the St. Johns River back to Palatka

    Our Maiden Voyage is finally coming to an end! We took a day off vlogging to explore Blue Springs State Park and it was amazing. Normally you can boat up the channel and see the beautiful springs close up, however, in the winter it is a manatee refuge. No boats or kayaks are allowed, but…

  • Our Perfect Cruise down the St. Johns River

    Our Perfect Cruise down the St. Johns River

    Finally we have the day we were hoping since we started the trip! Today we left Astor Bridge Marina, in Astor Florida and head back southbound on the St. Johns River. We left early and had some help from Ted ( a resident at the marina) which led us to a successful departure! We were…

  • Failing at docking for our first time

    Failing at docking for our first time

    Day two of our maiden voyage was definitely the worst of our entire trip. After getting hardly any sleep yesterday during our first attempt anchoring, we decided that we needed to recover at a marina and get caught up on some sleep. We left Lake George and decided to stop at the closest marina, in…