New Jersey Cruising

It was a little foggy as we departed Cape May early in the morning. As we exited the Inlet, we passed this large dredge being towed in.

As soon as we got ~2-3 miles off shore, the fog thickened, and we were dependent on the radar to show us other boat traffic. With light winds, there were no "waves" or whitecaps to be seen, but there were giant, gentle swells that lifted the boat up. When we surfed down the other side, our speed increased by 1 knot. All in all, it was a comfortable ride with the swells on our starboard following quarter. It was 50 miles to Atlantic City and the fog began to lift a little as we approached.

We made our turn into the Absecon Inlet and got a better look at the city and the beach.

We turned into the New Jersey ICW and the scenery immediately changed. Of course, the places we visit never look like what I have pictured in my mind, and our anchorage at Fish Island was a great example that made us laugh. Here it is: Fish Island, about a city block in area and 8" above sea level. Not too scenic, but it was just enough to break the waves.

We woke up the next morning to dense fog and went back to bed. Traveling in the open ocean in fog is one thing, but on this ICW, where the markers in the water do not always match the markers on the charts (due to the constantly shifting shoals) and the necessity of "reading the water" make traveling in fog impossible. By 10 am it had cleared so we left the lovely Fish Island anchorage. In this piture you can see one of the many shoal areas as the lighter colored water about midway up the picture.

Although we didn't run aground, we did see spots of 3.5 feet of water in the channel. Traveling the NJ ICW is slow and tedious. Because of the need to travel on a rising tide (that way if you run aground, the rising tide will help lift you off) and our late start, we had a short travel day. With thunderstorms predicted, we opted to stay at Beach Haven Yacht Club Marina where we had gotten fuel for the great price of $2.50/gallon. Eschaton joined us there and we walked over to the beach. We were pleasantly surprised ... who knew that had such pretty beaches in NJ ??

Today, we continued our run on the NJ ICW and are now anchored just a few miles from where we have to exit again into the Atlantic for a 44 mile ocean run to NYC !!! We're watching the weather, tomorrow looks like the day, so again, stay tuned.

If you are reading the blog only once a week, you might be missing some previous entries. I've been blogging 2-3 times a week lately because so much is happening. Just FYI, 'cuz we know you don't want to miss a single exciting installment, ha ha. Please keep those comments and e-mails coming, we love them !!!