Full-Time Onboard

Happy New Year! We are feeling all sorts of excitement and hope as 2025 is our GREAT LOOP YEAR! Upon making it back to Florida after the holidays, the lease on our marina slip came to an end. We chose to move to a nearby mooring field, which is much more cost-effective. We’re adapting well to life on the mooring ball (Ripley included!), but we’ve noticed that each night we’re exhausted and ready to hit the sheets. It certainly takes some adapting from land life!

Not only does life on the mooring ball take some adjusting, but we had a slight problem with our dinghy motor when we arrived. Over the holidays we bought a 2016 9.9 Suzuki four-stroke outboard. When we went to take Ripley out for her first bathroom break, the motor would start (after many, many pulls), but it wouldn’t stay running. After hours of troubleshooting, Evan reluctantly took apart the carburetor where he found the issue. Residue buildup in the carburetor jets kept the motor from proper RPMs in all ranges. Once he cleaned that up, it was running like new. Thank goodness because that’s essentially our car!

Before the holidays, we officially moved out of our home that is being rented out for the duration of the Loop, which means Northern Attitude is our home full-time for the foreseeable future! Unfortunately, we did not do ourselves any favors by dumping all our personal belongings on the boat before our holiday road trip. The first week of the new year has been full of organized chaos. We’ve spent much time sorting through what we have, making lists of the items we still need, and finding the space to store it all! Luckily for us, our boat has ample storage but we’re constantly discovering what the best way to organize is. I have a feeling it will be an ongoing process.

Our big project that must be completed before setting off on the loop is to upgrade our electrical system by installing lithium batteries and solar panels. We were able to mount our panels this weekend with the help of our friends, Josh and Haley on S/V Slacker. You can find them on Instagram @cruisincasa as they are also planning to take on the Great Loop this year. Next up is to actually wire the panels to the batteries, which will test Evan’s electrical knowledge.

If you want to catch up with our latest videos on YouTube, we completed a 12-video series in December that we called “Loopmas.” You can watch them all at this playlist here.

Stay tuned for next week’s post where we’ll hopefully have an update on our solar project. We are so looking forward to sharing the journey with you week-by-week, and we hope you’ll consider subscribing to our YouTube channel here.