A fast swing through New Jersey

New Jersey coast is 130 miles from Cape May to NYC. We did it in three days. Cape May to Atlantic City in Day One. Atlantic City to Silver Bay in Day Two. Silver Bay to Liberty Landing in Day Three. Outside,  inside and outside.

Leaving Utsch's Marina

Past the Coast Guard Station

The Cape May shore

The weather and water have been perfect while we travel. We have had an unbelievable string of great water days. I am sure Neptune is watching us but he must like what he sees because the water has been great.

The Usual Suspects - heading south to
Charleston while we head north

We left Cape May early on a beautiful morning. We said good-bye to Marilynn and Bob who left first then we passed them in the channel as we left.

Atlantic City in the distance - can you see the swells a little?

We came in to Cape May through the canal off Delaware Bay then left via the Cape May inlet directly into the Atlantic Ocean. We settled in to mild swells and sunshine for the 55 mile trip, traveling about 3 miles off shore. It would have rocked us to sleep if we were babies.

The wave action was pretty neat. the swells hit us on the back starboard (right) side and rolled to the forward port side. So we climbed the swell then floated down it again.

We started to see Atlantic City about 14 miles out. Entering the Inlet was easy since the waves were so calm but with that said on the outside of the breakwall, wave action was pretty strong.

Amusement park at Atlantic City

 Entering any inlet from the ocean always worries Kermit. We have to time it right between wave intervals when we turn from heading north to heading west. He is concerned that we don't breach. But as usual Kermit handled it just fine and the waves were small anyway.

cool house decorations

Wave action entering the inlet

We stayed at the Golden Nugget in a marina run by the state park with nice docks, bathrooms what seemed a mile away, and literally nothing going on. Two new Viking sportfish were being outfitted - a 63' and  52'. 

We stopped in to the casino but it was crowded, not clean, and not appealing. Kermit won $100 on roulette in about 15 minutes then proceeded to get food poisoning. Nuff said.

Windmills in Atlantic City

flat, swampy

lots of dredging

More good weather the next day on the way to anchor at Silver Bay with Sareanna. We traveled through flat swampy bottom land immediately  next to the ocean. It was sort of like Georgia, complete with hairpin turns and those big flies. The flies weren't nearly as bad as Georgia but we set up bug repellent equipment (fly swatters and Coleman bug machines) anyway. We got a few.

It looked like Georgia but I wonder how many mobsters are buried out in the New Jersey swampland? And how do they get the bodies out there anyway? Have to do it by boat.

Dick Shepard said the best way was to take the ICW. What could go wrong? Nothing except we "bumped" bottom (code word for hit bottom) 3 times. Fortunately the action of taking the boat out of gear propelled us over or maybe through the mud. Average depth was less than 5 feet.

Kermit says it was the hardest, most nerve-racking driving of the whole trip. At MM 130 the Sea Tow folks just hung around while tourists like us tried to figure out where was the channel. Nice. No help at all but nice.

This is the spot!!

There is the Sea Tow guy, following us kind of ghoulishly

Impact of Superstorm Sandy - we saw this all over

See the bends and the shallow? 

Shallow with messed up markers from the storm 

 Along the way we celebrated turning 1200 hours on our engines. YEAH!!! We traveled 6318 miles on this trip so far. We have another 1000 to go before crossing our wake. Our average speed on this leg was 9.3mph. Our average speed on the whole trip is 6.4mph. This includes idling in docks, waiting for bridges to open, idling in marina, etc.

 This is a view of our tachometers when we took that photo of the GPS. Don, this is for you: at 2200 rpm we travel at 9.3mph fully loaded. This is our hull speed. 

 As a  passenger it was quite beautiful. along the way we passed dozens of little resorts, nice places to take the family with swimming action on the ICW and 2 blocks to the ocean.

this is the life - 2 girls on a kyack

the ocean is only a few blocks from the ICW

I love those osprey!

Sareanna and Christine

We missed the chance to see "Guidos" in their normal Jersey shore environment by bypassing Manasquon NJ in favor of anchoring. This is probably the last anchorage of the trip. It was great to spend it with Dick and Deanna and their old friends, Chris and Ted.

Rusty seemed to enjoy it too. Note to self, we need to start the dinghy motor more frequently. Kermit had a heck of a time with it.

Dick and Deanna ready to catch our lines to raft together

 Rusty seemed to enjoy wandering the beach and rolling in the sand. He enjoys life's simple pleasures.

Dinner was great for catchup until some rude big boat sent a wake our way that jarred the cleat off Sareanna. And our teeth too. after we got resettled we watched the sunset, some unexpected fireworks in the distance, the counted stars with Deanna. Nothing like it at marinas. Next time we will anchor more PR (post Rusty).

Deanna and Dick

This is the life!

One last potty for Rusty before bed.  

We pulled up anchor early the next morning excited to head to New York City.

We picked up a hitchhiker! 

It was another hard day picking our way through the ICW to the Manasquon Inlet then the ocean until we reached NY. The scenery was pretty - lots of resort action and finally seeing some boats.
 

A real fisherman is not afraid to show some butt crack!

 These photos were taken in the ICW on the way to the Manasquon Inlet. We had a bridge! Yipee.

 We stopped for gas.

 Then we got to the inlet.

 And out into the ocean again. No problems. We can do this!

 Here is something you don't see every day. A parasail boat cut right in front of us. We waved to the nice people in the sling who came within feet of us.

Say hello Gracie!

Next: Heading into NYC - we are SOOOO excited!!!