2020: Cape May to Barnegat NJ

Depart: Cape May, NJ anchorage 9:30
Arrive: Barnegat Bay anchorage 7:40
Distance: 75.5 nm

Last night, and even after we woke this morning, the plan was to stay the day at the Cape May anchorage and wait until the ocean waters settled down before continuing homewards. As we laid in bed, I heard a noise reminiscent of the sounds I heard on the Loop when a tug went by the boat. Clark jumped up to take a look and came back to report that it was a fishing boat going out for the day.

A while later, Clark called the fishing boat captain on the radio and asked him about the wave action on the ocean. The prediction of 8 footers had scared us off. Clark heard from the fisherman that it was more like 5 foot waves with a 5 second period. Hearing that, Clark decided that we might want to go "take a look" and see if we wanted to brave it out there.

Leaving Cape May to venture into ocean

Waves breaking at the Cape May Inlet

I have never know Clark to turn back once he ventures out to "take a look", so I anticipated an interesting time on the ocean. Having been told it was 32 nautical miles to Atlantic City, I figured I could manage 4 hours.

As I got tossed around on today's trip, I thought "who needs a trip to the amusement park? I have a roller coaster, the Tilt-a-whirl, Roaring Rapids, and the Log Flume all wrapped up in one package by the name of Sunset Delight!" The waves averaged 5 feet. We saw some that reached 8 footers. Some came in triples. We would glide over the first and second and then get dropped in a trough created by the third.

At some point along the trip, Clark decided to make a trip down below to take care of a few things. It was funny to see him bouncing around in the pilot house as he grabbed at one handhold and then the next as he attempted to walk. He looked up at me in the upper helm at one point with a big grin on his face. He was clearly having fun.

I, on the other hand, tried to stay put as much as possible. When visibility on the upper helm diminished so much we could not see out the panel, we migrated to the pilot house. Clark said I could stay up top by myself if I wanted to, but I decided to brave the stairs and made my way down to keep him company in the pilot house.

I considered the merits of venturing as far as the head and studied the waves trying to pick a time that felt like I could make the trip. As I watched for a window to make it downstairs, I saw something I thought was strange. "Is that a marker?," I asked. "Yes, it's a Red/Green marker." Clark looked it up and found it was marking "The Lump" -- a shallow, 16' area.

Then, to make things more interesting, a trap magically appeared out of nowhere. I alerted Clark and he diverted our course. We did not see any others nearby, but as soon as it appeared there were no more, another appeared and then another. Given the wave heights, the traps played hide-and-seek - now you see me, now you don't!  I decided that I didn't really need that trip to the head. After all, we only had two more hours to go to get into Atlantic City!

Finally, as Atlantic City became visible on the horizon, I mentioned to Clark that we had not seen another boat on the ocean the whole time we were out there. He looked on AIS and found a boat about 4 nm ahead of us - Windfall, a 46' sailboat. We turned to go into Absecon Inlet for Atlantic City, but the sailboat continued on northward.

Coming into Atlantic City, I watched the channel markers dancing in the waves.

Finally, at 2:15, we got far enough into the inlet to have the waters settle down. Phew! We made it!

Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, NJ

As we came in the inlet, Clark asked me to drive so he could use the head. I told him I had a more urgent need since I had not seen the head in over 4 hours. When I came back, he gave me the helm. I saw the anchorage at Brigantine was coming up quickly to starboard. Knowing it is tricky to get into this anchorage, I was anxious for Clark to return.

When he came back and took over the helm, he continued on past the anchorage. "What are you doing?," I squawked. He replied, "Sure why not? It's sunny and only 2:15, we can keep going to Barnegat!"  As we talked, we passed under the bridge at the inlet.

I hate surprises, and this was one big surprise. First, I thought we would not travel at all today. Then I agreed to 4 hours on 5 to 8 foot seas. I thought we were done for the day. Given my drastic reaction to his revelation, he turned the boat around and went back through the bridge. Knowing that he would prefer to continue on, I relented and said we should try the trip if he wanted. I just needed to eat lunch to improve my mood.

At that point he was committed to going through the bridge, so he waited until he was on the other side and turned around again to pass under the bridge a third time. I laughed and pointed out that if anyone was watching from shore they either thought we were crazy or we really liked driving under that particular bridge.

So, instead of calling it a day, we continued on towards a new destination. The only caveat ... we would find some shallow water as low tide was at 1:30. Hopefully, it would be high enough when we got to the shallow areas. Sure enough, we found those shallow spots along the way. As we approached Great Bay, we watched the depths go lower and lower and lower until the depth finder could no longer find water below the keel.

We crept through at idle speed. We never bumped. Talk about one extreme to the other, from the waves on the ocean to no water under the keel on the Jersey ICW, we have covered the spectrum. I actually found the 0" of water more stressful than the 8' waves. After that we found more places with less than 1 foot of water under the keel, but nowhere else did we see 0".

When we purchased our first boat, C House, we kept it docked in Mystic Island which is near Great Bay, so we are familiar with these waters from past experience. It was interesting to see the area again after not being here for several years.

Circular Sandbar 

Small, flat island

Old Fish Factory

Beached Red marker 

closeup of Old Fish Factory

Old Coast Guard Station

Now an extension of Rutgers University

After leaving Great Bay, we traveled along Long Beach Island.

LBI

Beach Haven

Solitaire House on an Island

Beach Haven

Street leads right to water - it must flood here at higher tides

Black Pearl pirate ship

Fantasy Island Amusement Park

Colorful houses in Beach Haven, NJ

Continuing on, we passed by a section where dredging equipment was in place.

Dredging Equipment and pipeline

Backhoe on a barge  on Jersey ICW

Cute Little Temporary Marker 

Looking back at the pair of temporary markers

I honestly thought this day would never end, but finally I caught a glimpse of Barnegat Light and knew we would be anchoring some time soon. Unfortunately, we had to follow the deeper water round and round the bay until we got to our spot.

Yay! Barnegat Light!

More dredging equipment near the spot where we chose to anchor

I had no time to cook as we traveled today, and unfortunately, we ate all the leftovers last night. As soon as we got the anchor down, I left Clark to put everything away and close up the upper helm. I went to see what I could find for dinner.

After dinner and dishes, I sat down to work on the blog updates. I should have been in bed sleeping in preparation for another day on the ocean. Instead, I was up past midnight typing away. To avoid rain tomorrow, we need to get an early start. Hopefully it will be calmer on the ocean tomorrow than it was today.