Our Journey Tracks: Cape May to NYC

Saturday, June 6 - We had our heart set on leaving this morning to start our travel up the NJ ICW. We got up early and checked the weather. For once this week, the weather forecast had gotten better!! Suddenly, we realized we could make a run up the Atlantic coast to Atlantic City. “NE winds 5-10, seas 2-4 feet, with swells from the SE 7 seconds apart."

Everyone else who’d been waiting in Cape May with us had the same idea. There was a mass exodus from the marina. We left at 7 AM, all a-twitter.

Upon leaving the Cape May inlet we hit some rough water and had to brace ourselves to stay upright. Soon, though, we got far enough out and away from that current to settle into a “wavy” ride up the coast. Visiblity was limited at times to 1 mile, and there were a good number of boats out that day traveling north. We saw two large cells of rain on radar…and watched as we entered and exited the showers.

Our view out this morning...

And later, coming into Atlantic City...

As we grew closer to Atlantic City the skies started looking a bit angry. We made it safely into a slip at the Historic Gardner Marina, though. We had telephoned and hailed the marina multiple times trying to set up a transient overnight. No reply. Finally, we contacted someone in the nearby aquarium and were told to come in, take a slip, and come up to the aquarium to pay ($1.50/ft.).

When we got to the docks, scoping out the open slips, we were directed by a young man with “staff” on his shirt to a slip close to the shore. Turns out this was Chris, the new dock master, who was on his first day of the job. He actually thought he was being hired as the assistant dock master…but soon realized he was the only dock master.

Chris told us the slip we were in had a low tide depth of 4 feet. A bit later in the afternoon he came by to say he’d been measuring the depths in the slips and ours would actually probably get down to 2 feet. He moved us to the commercial dock where we siddled up to a slip next to a tour boat. A bit busy that Saturday evening…but, no problem. The price, as they say, “was right!”

Sunday, June 7 - Today we started the NJ ICW! A view of Atlantic City as we left this morning...

We timed our departure so that we would be on a mid-tide rising…so 9 AM. It being the weekend, there were a ton of small fishing boats in the channel. Moving around them and staying in “deep water” (read: 4 feet)was challenging.

About an hour after we’d left our dock we ran aground. Ah, well. Boat US to the rescue! We were promptly towed off the shallow spot and escorted through what he described as one of the most troubling areas of this ICW.

That accomplished, we spent the rest of that day with eyes trained on the markers and the depth finders! That said, we really enjoyed the view as we passed by the surrounding areas...

We made it all the way up to Tom’s Creek and an anchorage near Shore Point Marina. Wayne took Lucy in for a walk to a nearby boat ramp and pebbly beach. Spent a nice night in the cove.

Monday, June 8 - The next morning it looked like the winds were going to be picking up again…and sooner than we’d expected. We decided to contact Shore Point for a slip for two nights to see the winds out, and they told us to come on in. Their diesel was a good price, so we topped off the tanks before getting into our slip.

Neatest little marina! Nice people, $1.50/ft. + electric for Boat US discount…and a loaner car!!!

Beautiful area. The views of the river are amazing. The marina is obviously home for the majority of the boats docked here. Some even have “dock-a-miniums” on the shore: wooden platforms with tables, chairs, storage by their slips.

We borrowed the loaner car and drove to the nearby Shop Rite supermarket. Wow! It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a well-stocked store! We made it back to our boat with a good supply of provisions and quickly put them away.

We’d met a couple, Dave and Trisha, on SOVEREIGNTY, a Krogen Manatee, and they had invited us over for evening cocktails. They are live-aboards for 4 years now (Dave was live-aboard on a sailboat for 30 years before they met)and travel annually from Stuart, FL, to Lake Champlain. Sounds like a good plan! They anchor out a lot and we talked with them about good places on up the way. They are leaving on Tuesday afternoon and going up to anchor near Manasquan inlet in preparation for a Wednesday trip up the coast and through New York to the Hudson.

Tuesday, June 9 - Wednesday looks like a good day to travel outside. We’ve decided to leave tomorrow morning at the crack ‘o dawn and head up to the anchorage behind the Statue of Liberty.
Today we made a quick trip into town for stop at Lowes and Home Depot. The afternoon was spent preparing for departure…filling up the water tank, cooking a pork tenderloin and a meatloaf for quick meals later…and plotting our course.

Wednesday, June 10 - Still a good weather outlook for today’s trip to NYC, so we were up at 4:30 and out of the marina by 5:30! Our view of the Tom’s River as we left…and Shore Point Marina.

We had 2 hours’ travel to the Manasquan Inlet…and then we were on the ocean again.
Don’t want to get too close to the breakwater at Manasquan Inlet!

And our ride once we got out of the inlet area...

The Jersey shore as the sun got higher in the sky..

Seemed to take forever to get from one waypoint to another today. In this shot of the plotter screen you can see the boat image at the bottom…headed for the highlighted X, our next waypoint. "Objects in the plotter window are further away than you think.” It was to take us an hour to get to that waypoint! ;-)