All Shook UP!

 Monday, July 11, 2022

Today looked like a good weather day for going out on the Atlantic Ocean from Cape May, NJ, to a marina north of Atlantic City through the Little Egg Inlet.  Esperenza and Maggie Jo left Cape May at 6 AM for what would probably be a 5-6 hour trip.

The waves weren't at all what we thought they would be and we basically had a whirling, twirling, leaping ride all the way.  Oh! and then we got to the inlet, Little Egg Inlet!  We've never been in such uncontrollable a situation!  We'd called the Coast Guard for advice on conditions at the inlet: usability, shoaling, use of...anything to give us guidance through the inlet.  Nada.  Coast Guard answered saying "people use this inlet every day"...but they really can't comment further due to liability issues.  WHAT???

So fine.  We wallowed through the inlet, which was showing white caps all over (indicating shallow water).  Talk about uncontrollable!  We've never been in situation so scary as this.  But...we made it through without issues...it was just VERY uncomfortable.'

Again, we'd had trouble finding a place to stay and finally landed a couple of slips in the Beach Haven Yacht Club in Beach Haven, NJ.  Beautiful little town and the people at the yacht club were so friendly and helpful.  I think it was worth $4.00/ft. per night to stay....

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Woke to a beautiful day.  Wayne and I walked up to the local grocery and got some supplies.  For a small store it had a great selection and a really good deli area.  Spent a lot of the day working on our Navionics app for navigation as we go along.  Finally got a workable outcome, but still needs some work.  Tomorrow we're going "inside" on the ICW so we don't have to worry about the ocean.  Our destination is a marina near the Manasquan Inlet.  This evening is stormy, windy, nasty.  Tomorrow should be better (?).

Our companion boat, Esperanza, has a gorgeous golden retriever, Ginger, an English cream in coloring, and Ginger weighs about 60 lbs.  Their boat doesn't really allow an easy way for her to get off the boat.  Until now.  They have a lift on the boat for their dingy...and they have a sling they can use to lower Ginger down...but they'd never tried it until today. Here's the video of Ginger being lowered from the boat to land with the lift:

https://youtu.be/EcnA5BTbm9w

Funny thing happened with Maggie today.  We were taking a walk in town and passed a yard with a "sailing captain" figure in the front yard.  Maggie apparently though he looked suspicious and started barking voraciously!