Home to Sandy Hook, NJ

4/28/2017

Clark had a multi-part escape plan when he woke this morning for getting us out of the lagoon off Barnegat Bay where we spent the night. First, to lessen the boat's overall weight, I needed to take a long shower and let the water run to reduce the amount of water on board. Second, we could drop the dinghy into the water to serve two purposes - reduce the weight of the boat and use the dinghy to scout water depths. Third, wait until high tide to leave. The tide change here is only six inches, but he decided we needed to take every inch we could get.

Before leaving we walked up to our friends' house and chatted with them. Spring is definitely here in New Jersey.

Beautiful Blooming Tree in Barnegat, NJ

We also got to see this pretty little dog do her four tricks - sit, lie down, roll over, and speak.

Speak! Ruff!

Clark explained his plan of action to our hosts, but Garry told him that if we left at high tide and  "hugged the right side" of the lagoon going out, we would have no problem with the water depths. With that advice, we eliminated the dinghy steps from the plan. Since high tide would be around noon, we planned to start our departure for 11:30 and said our farewells at 10:00, so I could take that long shower.

When we left the lagoon following Garry's recommendation, we had 0.8' of water under the bottom of the boat - not much, but enough! After that, we had no problems making our way across Barnegat Bay towards the inlet and access to the ocean for today's travel.

Barnegat Lighthouse

Busy Jetty at the Lighthouse 

Fishing Boat coming in Barnegat Inlet as we made our way out

Although wave heights of 3-to-4 feet were predicted, as we made our way out of the inlet, we rolled over waves much higher than that. Using the display on the chart plotter, Clark tried to estimate the wave heights. Many appeared to be at least 7 footers; some appeared to be taller even than that. As we made our way out of the inlet, we had to follow the channel markers carefully. The rolling waves flowing in from the ocean were breaking in the shallow waters outside of the marked channel.

Breakers in Barnegat Inlet

Barnegat Inlet - outside of the channel

We followed the channel markers out into the ocean. Once we were about three miles of shore, we made our turn northward to head to Manasquan for the night. We did not bother with taking pictures of the shoreline as we traveled because, due to heavy fog along shore, we could barely make out the land.

After setting up waypoints and a route on the chart plotter, Clark determined that we would arrive in Manasquan mid-afternoon. With the wave action on the ocean the way it was affecting us, the only danger we were in was being gently rocked to sleep. Clark decided to calculate the distance to marker SR1 (Shrewsbury Rocks) to see what time we would arrive there if we kept going. Doing the math, he came up with an arrival time at Sandy Hook of around 6:30 or so. He started thinking that maybe we could get to Sandy Hook (Atlantic Highlands, NJ) and anchor there for the night.

As we approached Manasquan and it became clear that we could and would keep going, we set our sights on Sandy Hook for our last night aboard. The closer we came to Sandy Hook, the more familiar the shoreline became. Too bad the visibility was so poor today.

Bridge at Shark River Inlet

Asbury Park, NJ

Asbury Park, NJ

Convention Center, Asbury Park, NJ

When I was a little girl, I wondered where helium balloons went when one escaped up into the air and disappeared. I wonder no longer as I have seen more balloons than I can count floating on the ocean. Today we saw two Mylar balloons. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of 6 or more blue and white balloons all tied together. I remember on one trip between Long Island and New Jersey years ago, I saw so many balloons floating in the Atlantic Ocean I could not even begin to count them all - but certainly more than a dozen.

Annoying Mylar Balloon polluting the Atlantic Ocean

We set up our Auto Pilot to carry us to our set waypoints. Unfortunately, twice we had to detour due to fish trap areas. When I first saw a trap, I thought it was yet another of the many sea gulls we have seen floating on the ocean waves pretending to be trap markers. However, when I saw "how long their necks appeared to be" I decided we must have traps up ahead.

At least the traps today had nice tall flags on them to announce their presence.

Around 4:00 I escaped to the salon to grab a snack. As I munched on my apple and messed with my phone, Clark made me jump a mile in the air by coming down and asking me if I was available to come up and talk. Geez - who's driving this boat anyway? Clark says it is the German guy, Mr. Otto Pilot.

I had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk about, so it was no surprise when he suggested that, given the time and our location, we proceed all the way home instead of dropping anchor in Sandy Hook. He anticipated an in-coming tide and a quick ride home that would deliver us at our dock around 7:30 - a half hour before sunset. I agreed we should "carry on", so we continued on towards the Shrewsbury River and eventually our home dock.

As we approached Sandy Hook, we could just make out New York City and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge through the heavy fog. We did not bother trying to take any pictures.  Rounding the tip of Sandy Hook, however, we had good visibility to capture some photos.

Sandy Hook Lighthouse and houses at Fort Hancock

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Highlands, NJ

Local Restaurant in foreground with
Twin Lights Lighthouse in background (on hill)

Another view of Twin Lights lighthouse on hill
(only one light is ever lit and is visible way out into the ocean)

Many Shrink-wrapped boats in boatyard -
Clearly boating season has not yet arrived in Monmouth County, NJ

We passed under the very tall Highlands bridge with no difficulties; however, we cannot squeeze under the Sea Bright bridge with this boat like we did with our last one. We had to call for an opening.

Houses on the river in Sea Bright, NJ

Approaching Sea Bright bridge

Open Please - 19' clearance at low tide and we need min. 23'

We counted on an incoming tide, but as we traveled the final stretch of the Shrewsbury River, the tide had yet to turn and was ever so slightly against us. As we passed under the bridge, at pretty much dead low tide, we both realized it might become "interesting" trying to get our boat all the way home.

As we turned the corner towards Pleasure Bay, I reminded Clark to watch for shoaling at the turn. Sure enough we started to see water depths drop dramatically. We managed to pick our way through to Pleasure Bay without any difficulties, but we both knew the real challenge would be getting into the creek leading to our dock.

We had shallow water and the low-in-the-sky, bright sun in our eyes challenging us all the way to our creek. At the entrance to our creek, we saw the depths continuously dropping on both depth finders. Eventually, the one on the port showed a depth of "--.--" while the one on the starboard showed 309'. Regardless of both readings indicating that we basically had our depth finders in the muck instead of in water, we could and did keep going. I looked behind the boat several times, and each time I could see the water turning black with stirred up the muck as we made our way down the creek.

Looking at the shoreline of the creek, Clark figured out that not only had we come home at low tide, we had come home during an "astronomical" low tide. (We are pretty close to a new spring moon when the tides are more pronounced.) Well, if we can fight our way to the dock today, then we should be able to make it any other time! Besides, I am sure our fellow creek-mates will appreciate our dredging activities.

We did make it to our dock, but then we had more fun to come. How to tie a 52' boat to a 20' floating dock!? We ended up with the boat tied to the dock in the middle with the bow hanging off one end and the stern hanging off the other. This worked, however, it provided no easy way to disembark. I started to resign myself to spending the night, and perhaps the rest of my life, on the boat. Getting off looked to be a grim proposition.

Since Clark climbs around the boat like a monkey, he easily got himself on and off the boat multiple times while we tied up. He decided that we needed a step ladder so that I could climb down off the boat as well. The only issue was how to get the ladder close enough to one of the two hatches / doorways to allow me room to climb off the boat.

I solved that last problem by suggesting he put the ladder in the middle of the dock / boat. Then I climbed over the boat rail and onto the ladder to disembark. Had it not been for the dinner out I received as a reward for my acrobatics, I might have declined to even get off the boat tonight. However, Clark offered me pizza out instead of cooking, and suddenly the lack of an appropriate egress no longer seemed a big hurdle to getting off the boat.

We had a nice dinner out at Olivia's Italian Restaurant in Little Silver, New Jersey before returning to the boat for the night. (I even managed to climb back up the step ladder to get back on board in the dark of night.) Even though we are in our own backyard, we had too much to do to move ourselves into the house tonight. Plenty of time for that over the weekend.

NOTE: This episode of our travels ends here. However, we expect many more exciting adventures to come in our boating future.  All of our travels, including our 13 months enjoying America's Great Loop, can be found at cmosboating.blogspot.com. Not all entries are posted to Facebook, use the link at the blog site to sign up for email to ensure automatic receipt of future blog entries.

Barnegat, NJ

4/27/2017

Before we said farewell to our hosts at Kammerman’s Marina, Clark went for a stroll around the area and took a couple of pictures.

At Kammerman's Marina in Atlantic City, NJ

Streets near the marina in A.C.

When we left the dock at the marina, just after 9:30 this morning, the skies remained hazy, but miracle of miracles, the sun made an appearance and no rain appeared in today’s forecast. Since we planned to stop at a friend’s house in Barnegat for the night,and we were tired of being tossed around by wind and waves, we headed for the ICW for today’s travel. 

Atlantic City, NJ - less foggy today

Final look at AC, NJ

Traveling "on the inside" we did see a bit more boat traffic today than our last few travel days, but not much more. We passed a work boat and, spread out throughout our day, even a few pleasure craft.

Dredge between Brigantine Bridge and Mankiller Bay, NJ

We passed a wind farm near Atlantic City.

Wind Farm seen as we departed the Atlantic City, NJ area

As we progressed towards and through Great Bay, we saw some familiar sights from our early boating days in these South Jersey waters.

Sticks and small trees in waters along ICW

Old "Fish Factory"on Fish Island in Great Bay
(still foggy here obviously)

Old "Coast Guard Station" - Great Bay
(now Rutgers University Marine Field Station)

Continuing on our way, we traveled alongside Long Beach Island, and more specifically, Beach Haven, New Jersey.

Beach Haven, NJ

Ferris Wheel & Rides
Fantasy Island Amusement Park
Beach Haven, NJ

Beach Haven - marina and water tower

Looking right down a street in Beach Haven

Cell Tower
I bet they have good signal strength!

Some nicer homes on Long Beach Island

Clark backed off on speed during our trip so as not to arrive too early at our friends' house. Eventually, we made our way through Barnegat Bay and arrived at the fairway leading in towards our friend's house. As we traveled the ICW today, we had a few places where the water was "skinny", and we had to keep a constant eye on our depth. 

Unfortunately, as we approached the access to our friends' dock, the water depths continued to drop - 3' - 2' - 1.7' - .9' - 0.0' ... not good! We found ourselves aground! Fortunately, we were at idle speed, so we did not bump hard.

Black dot is us stuck in sandy / mucky waters of Barnegat Bay.
Red line shows where we wanted to go.

Sadly, the tide was dropping, so we did not have much time to act. After trying unsuccessfully to wiggle the boat this way and that, Clark ran down to the cockpit, grabbed a boat hook, and probed the water on both sides of the boat to determine which side had more depth. He decided on port and ran back up top. 

With our inability to wiggle the boat, I thought surely we had found the place where we would spend the night or at least sit until the next high tide. I had forgotten, but Clark obviously remembered, that on this boat we have a bow and a stern thruster. On Sea Moss, we had neither. Clark gave it his all, and with thrusters pushing and props spinning together, I felt the boat start to move and then float. Yay! 

We were off the sand bank. Now we just had to find a pathway to our night's destination. As we pushed ourselves off the sand with props whirling and thrusters sounding, we made a considerable amount of noise. A man with the house at the corner of the fairway was on his dock and watched us as we approached. 

Clark yelled, "Where's the water?" The man replied, "You found it!" Our depth read 0.7 at best. Yikes! Then Clark asked him if we were at mid-tide, and he looked around and said, "No, pretty close to high tide." Yikes again! Based on our current situation, I wondered if Clark would abort our plan to visit our friends Garry and Sherry.  

Instead of surrendering however, he forged ahead. Luckily, we had no more issues with becoming stuck, but as we docked at our friend's house, we did churn up smelly, black muck from the bottom of the water.  Since we had all but forced our way in here, I asked Clark, "Now that we got in here, how do we get out again?" "Leave at high tide!", he replied.

We arrived and tied up at our friends' dock about 2:00 and then had a lazy afternoon until they got home from work. I read some but eventually gave in to what I really wanted to do and had a lovely two-hour nap. Clark took a couple of pictures of the area. Unfortunately, that sun we saw briefly earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen when he pulled out the camera.

View from our boat docked in Barnegat, NJ

A lone swan came to visit

Sun!

Our friends arrived home just before sunset. Clark was so excited to see a sunset, he snapped some photos while we said our hellos.

Some friends joined the lone swan

Same scene as earlier but now at sunset

After showing the boat, we went out to dinner at The Lighthouse Tavern. We arrived there just before 8:00 to find that "trivia night" began at 8:00. This was fine except the DJ had such a strong, deep "radio" voice that carried so well across the restaurant it was hard to compete with to have a conversation. We had a lovely evening out and greatly enjoyed reconnecting with our friends over a scrumptious, casual dinner. 

Foggy Atlantic City, NJ

4/26/2017

Captain Clark reviewed the weather reports and wave heights in detail and decided that, with reducing winds, we could leave Cape May around noon and make our way to Atlantic City. With that plan, we dropped our lines just after 11:00 and headed out towards the Atlantic with the idea that if it appeared too rough out there, we could always turn around and come back in for another night.

After exiting the marina, we saw the Coast Guard preparing to dock their boat. While we watched, their rather large boat rocked side-to-side as a huge swell passed by predicting an interesting ride for us.

Coast Guard Vessel coming in to dock

Coast Guard Water Tower
(same one we could not see clearly through the fog yesterday)

As we made our way towards the ocean, we passed through an area with dredging equipment scattered along the waterway. We learned, while staying at the marina, that sand is being brought in to replenish local beaches.

Clark called the tug he saw ahead on the VHF radio and asked how to proceed through the area. The tug that responded Tug Pops, however, was not the one we could see, which led to some confusion on the directions we received on how to pass. Fortunately, Clark pursued the information until he got sufficient clarification to travel safely. Had we followed what we initially thought they meant, we would have gone out of the channel and into trouble.

Dredging Equipment at Cape May, NJ

Dredging Equipment at Cape May, NJ

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company
Dredging Equipment - Cape May, NJ

After passing by the above equipment, we finally passed Tug Pops.

Tug Pops at dredging site

As we traveled along the channel approaching the Atlantic Ocean, the swells grew. Four-to-seven foot swells were the predicted wave heights for today. The ones we saw in the inlet came closer to the seven-foot variety rather than the four-foot version. In addition to the swells growing, we found the fog becoming more and more dense.

With the boat rolling over the waves as they came directly towards us, I couldn't help myself from saying "Ye Ha! Ride-em-Cowboy!" more than once. Even as I enjoyed the ride, I wondered how well the boat would fare once we turned north and starting taking these same waves "on the beam". Just before we exited the inlet, a fishing boat appeared out of the fog coming towards us. With the combination of low visibility and large swells, I wondered if my captain would continue on or turn back.

As it happened, once we got into the ocean heading northward, the swells presented no serious problem. Although the swells definitely reached up to the seven-foot height, they appeared like rolling hills as opposed to peaked mountains. We gradually went up and then we gradually went down as the swells passed under the boat.  As far as the fog was concerned, Clark turned on the radar and periodically used it to scan for approaching hazards.

Buoy in the Foggy Atlantic Ocean

Most of the trip, we could see nothing but the rolling water directly in front of us and the fog surrounding us. At one point, however, we did see two blips on the radar screen. They seemed to be moving rapidly in our direction. Shortly afterwards, two trawlers passed by us traveling at much higher speeds than our 9 knots. As they passed, Clark surmised that the two boats were most likely driven by captains hired to move the boats.

In the four hours we traveled from Cape May to Atlantic City, we saw no other boat traffic. With the dense fog, we could not make out any of the shoreline until we finally turned towards Atlantic City at the end of our voyage.

Foggy shoreline in the distance
(look closely to see the tall buildings)

The closer we came to Atlantic City, the more of the city we could see.

City in the distance

Amazingly, as I saw Atlantic City materialize out of the fog, I received a message from a very close friend who said, "I'm in Atlantic City today and looked out at the very rough surf ... Hope you're not traveling in this." I assured her that we were indeed traveling in this, and I could see Atlantic City as I read her message. Unfortunately, we would dock too late in the day to get to see her.

Foggy Atlantic City - getting closer

Wave Action coming into Atlantic City, NJ

Active Captain warned that, in September 2016, the channel markers had been re-positioned to include a "dog's leg" passage. We watched the buoys carefully to travel the marked route. Clark steered aggressively fighting the wishes of the following sea. As he fought to stay in the channel, I called out water depths, which changed drastically whenever a swell passed under the boat.

Nearing the beach, we could see surfers paddling out to enjoy the waves.

Surfers enjoying some wave action

Surfing from the beach at Atlantic City

As we did last year when completing our Great Loop voyage, we chose to stay at Kammerman's Marina while in Atlantic City. We find the owners and staff here friendly and welcoming. The view is not bad either.

Harrah's
(in center)

Harrah's in Atlantic City, NJ

The Water Club in Atlantic City