Tuesday 18 September 2012


September 17, 2012

Monday we decided to stay in the Liberty anchorage due to high winds as a result of Hurricane Leslie.  Dave worked on the AIS system & finally got it working.  The Automatic Identification System (AIS) locates & warns of any large vessels in the area on the GPS.  When he connected the correct wire, the GPS went berserk with all the traffic on the Hudson River.  Took a few minutes to shut down all the alarms.  

By Tuesday morning we were starting to run low on supplies, so we headed for Atlantic Highlands.  There was a fair bit of river traffic until we got south of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  Then it was nice calm flat water to Atlantic Highlands where we picked up a mooring ball.  They had a very nice shuttle-launch service that would run you back & forth from your boat to land.  Dave found out he could carry a 10 pound propane tank in his backpack - this was our first fill-up since Port Elgin.  

Wednesday, our friends John & Sandra, from Princeton, NJ came & visited us.  We went out for lunch & tried Flounder for the first time & enjoyed it very much. We had a nice afternoon visiting with them at their home in Princeton.  

Thursday we left Atlantic Highlands & motor-sailed around Sandy Hook for our first bit of ocean sailing.  It was a nice introduction to the Atlantic with calm winds & swells less than a foot.  We had planned on stopping at Manasquan but arrived there too early in the day.  Conditions were good so we decided to carry on & go to Barnegat Inlet.  The channel was well marked but the fishing boats do not slow down for any reason.  Their wake made it challenging getting into the Inlet.  We used the anchorage written up in Skipper Bob, which had good holding.  This was the first time we noticed salt crystals all over the boat.  

Friday we had hoped to make it to Cape May but due to calm flat water & no wind, it became obvious that we could not make it before dark so we pulled into Atlantic City.  On the way, in the morning, we saw our first dolphins.  We had hoped to use an anchorage in Atlantic City.  The water was really shallow on the way in to this anchorage & with the tide still going out, we decided to go to a nearby marina by the  Golden Nugget Casino, rather than chance getting stuck in the anchorage.  

The long range forecast was not good for the first part of next week, so we started pushing to get inland.  Sataurday morning we left for Cape May in two to three foot swells, winds were 10 to 15 knots.  We were not able to sail much that day due to wind gusts up to 22 knots.  We arrived at Cape May & anchored east of the Coast Guard Station with several other sailboats.  

Sunday morning we started up the Cape May canal to Delaware Bay.  There are two 55 foot fixed elevation bridges that you have to go under on this canal.  With a 2 foot antenna, on top of a 40 foot mast, on top of our boat, you would swear that you were going to come out with 20 feet less on the other side of the bridge.  Scary.  We figured our calculations for the tides wrong, so they were against us all day.  The worst we saw was our speed down to 3 knots.  This slow progress meant we would not make it to the  end of the bay before dark so we decided to anchor in the Cohansey River.  The tidal current was very strong here & we had to reset the anchor twice during the night when the tide changed.   

Leaving New York City
Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Ship John Shoal Lighthouse, Delaware Bay

Sunset in the Cohansey River anchorage


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