2020: 40th Wedding Anniversary

Two days, one night, outing for our 40th anniversary

  Depart: Rumson, NJ home dock, 6 June 2020 @ 12:00 p.m.

  Arrive: Sandy Hook Anchorage 6 June 2020 @ 1:35 p.m.

  Depart: Sandy Hook Anchorage 7 June 2020 @ 1:45 p.m.

  Arrive: Rumson, NJ home dock 7 June 3:00

  Distance: ~ 17 nm

6 June 2020

Clark and I had been talking about doing something special for our 40th wedding anniversary (7 June 2020) for several months. Little did we know when we starting discussing options that a pandemic would present itself to stand in the way of our celebrations. Although things are starting to open up somewhat in New Jersey, we still prefer to stay on the safe side and physically distance ourselves from others. That cut our options down considerably.

As we sat at dinner Friday night, Clark said, "So what are we going to do for our anniversary?" One thing I knew I did not want to do was to ignore the day and do nothing. Staying home would most likely result in a day of house or boat cleaning - not my idea of a celebration of 40 years! My first thought was to pack a picnic lunch and go for a hike, but since we are both struggling with allergies from NJ trees and grass right now, that did not seem like a good plan. 

That idea, however, quickly morphed into having our picnic out on the boat. Clark came up with a better idea - take the boat out Saturday and stay overnight. Before pulling food out to take with us, I asked Clark Saturday morning if we were still good to go on our travel plans. He said yes, so I got busy. Other than food and electronics (cellphone, tablet, ...), the boat is mostly ready to go. 

Not being in a rush to get anywhere in a hurry, we planned to leave the house around noon. Unfortunately, with the height of Sunset Delight, we have to worry about the Sea Bright bridge clearance. Given we were leaving near high tide, we knew our only option would be to wait for an opening. Since Sea Bright changed their rules to open-on-the-hour a couple of years ago, we made our target the opening at 1 o'clock. 

Trying to reduce our wait time at the bridge, we figured we had 20 minutes or so to kill before leaving the house. I thought I would read to pass the time, but that did not happen. I mentioned to Clark that the eaves trough looked to have a bunch of pine needles in it. Next thing I knew he was up on a ladder cleaning out the gutter, and I was holding the bucket to catch the slop! 

Then I noticed that a piece of the decorative, wooden trim around our deck was close to falling off, so I went a got a hammer. Since he already had the ladder out, I figured he could kill two birds with one stone. He quickly climbed up and banged the board back in place. With both jobs completed in the available 20 minutes, we put our tools away and left for our boat outing.

As we passed through Pleasure Bay on the way to the Shrewsbury River, we passed a smaller boat with a kite attached. It appeared very festive on this bright and cheery spring day in June.

"Let's go fly a kite ..."

Knowing we had current against us on the way to Sea Bright, Clark left extra time to make the opening - apparently a lot more than we needed to. We ended up waiting at the bridge for 30 minutes! Although we had current against us in Pleasure Bay, as we sat waiting for the bridge, we had current with us continuously pushing us into the bridge. 

After drifting towards the bridge for a while, Clark would go astern to back away and then let us drift forward again. Twice, when he saw boat traffic coming up behind us, he blasted our horn with 3 warning blasts to give notice he was going astern. Probably no one else on the water knew what those 3 blasts meant, but it certainly got everyone's attention - including mine!

Waiting at the Sea Bright Bridge

Finally, about 12:58, the bridge tender called us on the radio and told us she would commence opening the bridge shortly. She said, "I will start at the next traffic light. It might take a few extra minutes to clear Captain." Traffic was non-stop, bumper-to-bumper going into Sea Bright. Everyone wanted to hit the beaches today!

Sea Bright Bridge - going up

Here we go ...

Yay, we are through and on our way again!

When Clark and I first starting anchoring in the Shrewsbury River near Sandy Hook, New Jersey, we found a fun place, Skeleton Hill Island, that locals called "The Island" at Spermaceti Cove. The ravages of time have taken their toll on our favorite place to anchor.

In 2013, the island was an island at high tide. 

"The Island" at Sandy Hook

"The Island" 2013 taken at sunset

Sadly, erosion has taken away all the vegetation and most of the sand. At high tide there is no evidence of the "island". At low tide, we see only a hint of sand above the water. 

What little is left of "The Island" disappears as 
the tide comes in. 

Skull Island at High Tide - no where to be seen!

We debated whether to anchor at "The Island", near Huber Woods Park along the Navesink River, or behind the breakwater near the Atlantic Highlands Marina. We opted for "The Island" for old times sake.

When we arrived at "The Island", I was surprised to see only one or two other boats.  In the past boats lined up side-by-side beached on the shore of the island to spend the weekend. 

Picture from 2013

Typical day before erosion ate away the island

Now, mostly day boats and jet skis play and leave before sunset. 

Although we lacked company when we first dropped anchor, more folks arrived as the day wore on. Eventually, with all the activity, we felt like we were under attack!

First, a military plane flew over making an abundance of noise as it passed overhead and then turned around and flew over once more.

Then a swarm of jet skis / personal water craft came zooming in. It reminded me of the sound bombers make in WWII movies with an unbelievably loud roar of engines! Clark said he saw at least 16 in the pack!

In the past, the crowd would swarm in early in the morning and flee around 3:00 p.m. to be home for dinner. Today, boats were still coming in at 3:00. Somewhere around 5:00 or so, though, we found the place becoming deserted. Ah, peace at last!

With high tide, we found any and all protection from waves gone. Stabilizers do not work when not underway. We had continuous rocking. We couldn't blame the jet skis zipping by as they were gone. Clark said it was caused by the wind. Some storms appeared to be passing through New Jersey / New York, but not where we were. The clouds looked ominous at times.

Later, as the sun set, Clark grabbed the camera and captured some pictures.

Highlands Bridge near sunset

Sunset at Spermaceti Cove, Sandy Hook NJ

Clark even managed to capture a great picture of the "Strawberry Moon"!

Highlands, NJ with a Strawberry Moon

After a dinner of chicken, eggplant parm, spaghetti, and veggies, we turned on the television and watched a couple of romantic comedy movies before calling it a night.

7 June 2020

I woke at 4:00 a.m. to the sound of footsteps over my head. Someone was walking on the bow of the boat. I quickly realized that someone was Clark. As I got myself out of bed to make use of the head, I felt the boat making jerking-type motions. This is not something I have experienced before. I wondered what force of nature was causing that particular motion. 

Not long after I woke, Clark appeared and said he would need my help with pulling in the anchor. The tide was at dead low and the jerking motion was being caused by the boat bouncing off the bottom. Before we went to bed, Clark let out more line to be sure to have enough scope for high tide. That extra length of line put us in shallow water when low tide hit. At full moon, the tides are ultra high and ultra low. Looking at the tide-change charts, Clark said that we had almost a 7-foot difference in water depths from high to low tide. 

I put a light jacket on over my nightgown and climbed up to the upper helm to do my part in this operation. Clark grabbed a flashlight and went out to direct my steering from the bow as he worked the anchor. When I looked at the depth gauge, I saw that we had .2 feet, i.e. 2.5 inches, of water under the boat. With the whipping wind, the boat kept getting shoved hard and hitting bottom.

After Clark pulled in what appeared to be a very short amount of anchor line, I was amazed to see the depth change to over 11 feet of water. What a difference a short bit of line made! We stayed at the helm with the engine running for several minutes watching to see what would happen when the boat swung in a new direction. Would we swing back into shallow water yet again? Eventually, Clark declared himself satisfied with the situation, so we shut everything down and climbed back into bed. 

Unfortunately, after the "excitement" of working the anchor at 4:00 a.m., neither of us could get back to sleep. After a while, Clark declared himself hungry and went in search of food. Hesitant to eat at that time of day, I satisfied my hunger by drinking a bunch of water. Eventually Clark went to sleep and at some point in close proximity to 6:00 a.m., I too slept. 

Before we went to bed last night. we talked about staying out on the hook for two nights and going home Monday morning when the Sea Bright bridge would open "on demand". When we got up this morning, however, Clark said he was unwilling to stay a second night at this anchorage. We could move to a new spot or go home. We opted to leave after lunch and go home. 

Where yesterday, the anchorage was filled with PWCs zipping here and there, today we had much better entertainment - kiteboarding! At 10 o'clock many kiteboards could be seen traveling at high speeds through the waters by Sandy Hook.

The video below shows one guy doing a flip.

Having decided to head home, Clark and I discussed the best time to leave given the tide table. I suggested we hang out for a bit and relax, have lunch, and then head back. We set 1:00 as our "anchor up" time once again concerned about arriving at the Sea Bright bridge in good time for an opening. The anchor came up clean, so we actually got under way at 12:50. Clark took the alternate route to exit the anchorage to see what had happened to water depths and shoaling over the winter. 

Some time in the past, Clark scoped out the best route to and from the anchorage and set waypoints repeatedly to guide us in and out. Fortunately, those waypoints still apply and we exited the anchorage without any issues. After exiting, we circled around and re-entered the Shrewsbury River to head towards home. 

As we approached the Highlands bridge, we saw bumper-to-bumper traffic (cars) on the bridge heading either to Sandy Hook National Park or into Sea Bright - either way these folks were looking for beach! 

Just passed under the Highlands Bridge

Bumper-to-bumper cars looking for the beach

Other end of the bridge
Bahr's Restaurant in the background

As we were heading home, others were heading out for an afternoon of fun.

Jet ski towing a raft for water play

As we approached the Sea Bright bridge, we started to see the beach clubs on the ocean side of Ocean Avenue. On the river side, we noticed that the parking lots were packed with cars. Private lots for the clubs were full, and public parking lots for Sea Bright beaches were equally busy.

So many cars in Sea Bright!

Once again we had a wait for the bridge. Clark was happy that this time we had the current against us, so that when he let the boat drift, it drifted away from the bridge instead of into it. While we waited for the bridge, I ran down and washed the dishes, collected garbage, and put bags together to carry up to the house when we got home.

Traveling along the Shrewsbury River after the Navesink River, we have Rumson on the starboard side and Sea Bright on the port (left) side of us. Once we pass the St. George's-by-the-River Episcopal Church, I feel like we are home even though we have another 20 minutes or so to go.

St. George's-by-the-River Church

After dodging the boating crazies along the way, we finally came to Little Silver Creek which leads to Rumson Creek and our home. 

Perfect boating day in Pleasure Bay
(The channel to our creek)

We got home at 3:00, carried our provisions up the hill to the house, and closed up the boat until next time. As soon as I got things stowed, I sat down to work on the Blog update. Clark laid down on the couch and took a much-needed nap!

It seemed only fair that, since I cooked last night, Clark should cook tonight. I sent him out to the grill with steaks while I took care of veggies indoors. 

All-in-all, it turned out to be a wonderful anniversary weekend - so much better than dinner in a restaurant which is over in 2 or so hours. Later in the summer, we will see if a longer trip is in the cards. We still have our sights set on a trip to Maine, by boat of course, one of these days (Coronavirus permitting).