Safe in Atlantic City

On Thursday morning, we left Liberty Landing on the Hudson and planned to do an overnight crossing of the whole east coast of New Jersey, arriving at Cape May the next morning.  But as we cleared the New York outer harbor, we encountered very strong winds and seas of 6 to 8 feet, onshore, with breaking waves.

We ran to Sandy Hook for shelter, and anchored overnight.  Several other boats joined us that afternoon – for the same reason.

On Friday morning, we left at dawn and traveled along the lee shore for 12 hours, 78 miles! (a new record for us) – with winds around 10 knots and seas around 3 to 4 feet.  Thank goodness we had Tom with us – we took the helm and traded every hour.

The big problem was that there was only one safe place to duck into along this whole stretch of coast (Manasquan Inlet), and that was only about 25 miles from Sandy Hook.

We arrived at Atlantic City just at sunset, and took a slip at the State Marina, which is connected to one of the biggest casinos in Atlantic City. We were beat all to hell. The boat held up fine; the wind instrument even worked again after a few hours. The crew – not so much.

We had a late dinner in the casino – the only places to eat right around the marina. The casino and its restaurants and bars played screaming "music" – figure that people won't be able to think so they will keep gambling.  It is a modern but uninhabitable place.  Expensive, too.  This place looks more like Vegas than Vegas does.  They turned off the band at the outdoor bar at 10 pm.

So, we are stuck in Atlantic City for a couple of days, at least, as the winds outside are now over 20 knots and the swells/waves are around 8 feet.  I really wanted to spend our layover at Cape May, but so it goes …

It looks now like we MAY be able to get out of here on Monday, with seas down to 4 feet or less and favorable winds (strong but from behind).  We have a 35-mile run from here to Cape May.

Then we have 50 miles up the Delaware Bay; hope to catch both a favorable tail wind and tail current (1.7 knots, for or against us).  This would take us to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (shelter!), and into the Chesapeake Bay.

I was hoping that we could make it into Annapolis in time for the Seven Seas Cruising Club meetings late next week, and maybe for the Boat Show the first week of October, and even hooking up with the flotilla of boats headed down the Chesapeake and into the ICW. Now, I figure we will be lucky to get there this Fall! (I'm a pessimist/realist).

So, today, we will go [not "pass go"] to the downtown Atlantic City Boardwalk and play tourist.  But no gambling – we did enough gambling yesterday when we barely made it into this marina before dark (and it would have been really hard in the dark, what with shoals and unlit buoys).

Latest conditions forecast:

Today=Saturday=now:  winds 20 gusting to 27, seas big [6-8 feet, I suspect], waves breaking onshore at chest height, rip tide.  We stay put.

Sunday: winds 11-14 NW (starboard quarter, seas 2-4 feet). We may try it. 35 miles on the outside to Cape May.

Monday: winds 12 NW, seas 3 feet.  Run to Cape May on Monday, if we don't get there on Sunday.

Tuesday & Wednesday: winds SW (up Delaware Bay).  Current favorable (1.7 knots) in the afternoon.  If doable, we go for the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. 

BUT – the weather predictions around here are almost always wrong.

So, we might actually get off this [expletive-deleted] ocean within a week.  Much longer to do this than we expected.

The crew has proclaimed, unanimously, that we will never do this again. Boat stays in Florida, or comes home on a truck.

Are we having fun yet?