2024 May: Finally Home

 7 May 2024

Depart: Cohansey Cove / Delaware River anchorage 7:50 a.m.

Arrive: Barnegat Bay, NJ anchorage 8:25 p.m.

Distance: 112 nm - a new record

Conditions: Fog on River / Clear day on Ocean

We planned to get an early start and make our way to Atlantic City by the end of today's travel. Although we got a reasonably early start, we had to travel at much slower than preferred speed due to heavy fog.

Clark sounded the horn every two minutes as a warning of our movement to other vessels on the Delaware River. Through the fog we could hear one other vessel doing the same. We came upon a few work boats out in the foggy waters.

We finally arrived at the Cape May Canal after searching for the markers through the dense fog.

The current was so strong at the entrance to the canal, our boat was pointed at a 45 degree angle to go straight. Clark struggled to line us up correctly knowing that once we got past the jetty, the current would abruptly stop and he would have to straighten out the boat in a hurry. Thank goodness it was him piloting the boat!

Looking back out to the river, I could see dolphins playing in the water.

As we entered the canal, Clark thought he saw a trap in the middle of the channel. Low and behold it was the dreaded Mylar balloon that said, "Happy Birthday".

Looking at the Delaware River from the canal, we could see fishermen wading in the River,

and sun bathers enjoying the misty but warm weather.

We passed the ferry depot at the canal entrance.

After all the fog on the river, it was amazing to see a beautiful clear day on the canal.

I looked back the way we had come to see that the fog was heavy behind us.

We noticed that a lot of boats are still on the hard in NJ,

but clearly some boats are already taking up space in the marinas.

Dredging in Cape May, NJ

As usual, we passed by the Coast Guard station. Sometimes we anchor near here, but not today!

Coast Guard Vessels

We entered the canal from Delaware Bay and went out the inlet to the Ocean on the other side of Cape May. Fortunately, the fog we had on the river did not extend to the ocean. Clark said it was the warm land air over the cold river that created the heavy fog conditions. Finally we could push up the throttles to normal cruise speed. 

Goodbye Cape May

After Cape May, we passed by the Wildwoods. Way off in the distance we could see the roller coaster.

We saw the "Beach Ball" that was noted
on the map above.

Wildwood Amusements

As we left the Wildwood area around 1:30, Clark said we had a decision to make. We could stop at Atlantic City as planned and arrive there around 4:00, or we could keep going to Barnegat Bay and arrive there at 8:00. 

Conditions were such that we felt it prudent to keep going. Even though sunset was listed as 7:57, we knew we would still have twilight for long enough to get in and get the anchor down. We opted to pass by Atlantic City and shoot for Barnegat.

As we neared Atlantic City, around 3:30, Clark redid the math for arrival at Barnegat and decided we could not make it in daylight. That made no sense to me given our earlier math. He redid the numbers and once again came up with an 8:00 arrival. Somehow he had miscalculated, so we traveled onwards.

We left Atlantic City behind us and aimed for the exciting Barnegat Bay inlet. Exciting because there is a lot of wave action at the inlet due to shoaling. Clark has studied the approaches from both north and south and felt confident that he could find a safe way in.

As we neared Barnegat Bay, we watched the sun going down.

Not quite sunset

The sun was completely down as we approached Barnegat Lighthouse.

The ride in did not disappoint. We had wave action, so it was indeed wild and challenging. Yee Haw! Exhilarating! 

Given the wave action, I was surprised to see a number of small fishing boats located near the jetty with their anchor lights on.

The waves were crashing over the jetty where they were anchored and fishing.

The brave guy shown below was standing on the jetty as the waves crashed around him. I hope he got lots of fish out of it.

Ah! Finally we got through the ordeal and arrived at Barnegat Light.

As we came in looking for a place to drop the "hook", a fishing boat was heading out for night fishing. The two guys in the cockpit waved to me as we passed.

Barnegat Light looked real pretty lit up at night.

I knew it would be late when we dropped anchor and did not fancy cooking dinner at 9:00 at night. Around 7:00, as we traveled on the ocean, I cooked dinner. I made a chicken / pasta / veggie casserole that we could eat out of bowls and brought it to the upper helm to eat as we rode along. I decided that the dishes could wait until tomorrow.

When we calculated our distance traveled today, we came up with a whopping great 112 nautical miles covered in just under 13 hours. That is a new record for our travels up and down the east coast --  both in distance traveled and number of hours traveled in a single day.

8 May 2024

Depart: Barnegat Bay, NJ anchorage 9:00 a.m.

Arrive: Home! 5:00

Distance: 62 nm

Conditions: rain expected - never happened

Looking at the weather yesterday, Clark said we should delay leaving in the morning as a storm looked like it would arrive around 9:00. I decided to stay in bed for a while before taking a shower. Meanwhile Clark was prepping the boat for departure and watching the weather. He came to find me around 8:30 to say the storm would not be impacting us and we should get going. Thankfully by the time he came to tell me that, I was mostly ready to get underway. Frequently I / we eat breakfast underway, so I could do the same today.

We had a bouncy trip coming out the Barnegat Inlet. The waves were coming at us from the South / Southwest. Once we  got out into the ocean and turned north, we had the waves on our stern. The waves were 3 to 4 footers with a long period. Our speed fluctuated from 8.1 knots to 8.6 knots as we rode the waves. 

As the waves picked up the boat and carried it for a while, it was like surfing. Whee! It was a gentle ride. Around 12:30 we got a boost from current and saw the speeds vary from 8.6 to 8.9 knots. We did not see many vessels going south, but we did pass a police boat heading into the waves. Their ride was more challenging than ours.

Police boat heading south into the waves

Normally we travel up the coast near enough to shore to get a reasonably good look at what we are passing. However, today we were beyond the 3 mile limit as we traveled. So, other than watching for traps, and finding only birds trying to fake us out as traps, we saw only ocean water until we got close to NYC. 

Approaching Sandy Hook I was reminded of the time 8 years ago when we traveled the same route. That time was significant as it marked our completion of America's Great Loop. We paused and took selfies to mark the occasion. 

Today, we found the view of NYC to be hazy, so the pictures were not so vivid as we would have liked.

Brooklyn

Traffic near Verrazzano Narrows Bridge

Verrazzano Narrows Bridge

"Cosco Shipping" vessel 

Cargo Ship approaching NYC

Sailboat with NYC in background

Looking the other direction, we could see Sandy Hook, NJ.

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Unlike Cape May yesterday, there were no sunbathers on the ocean-side beach at Sandy Hook. There were, however, a couple of fishermen.

Sandy Hook Beach - ocean side

Boat named "Slow Lane" 
passing by the tip of Sandy Hook, NJ

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Sea Streak / NYC - NJ Ferry

This is our home boating area and very familiar to us. 

Twin Lights Lighthouse
Highlands, NJ

Bahr's Restaurant - Highlands, NJ

Moby's - next door to Bahr's

Highlands Bridge

Some new homes and docks seem to have popped up recently. They were not something we remembered seeing before.

Home we don't remember seeing here before
Shrewsbury River, Highlands, NJ

Homes on the Shrewsbury River
in the Highlands, NJ

Shortly after passing under the Highlands Bridge, we passed by the entrance to the Navesink River.

Navesink River, NJ

Navesink River, NJ

The next point of interest to us was the Sea Bright Bridge. The original bridge is being replaced, and we were anxious to see what progress had been made in our absence from the area.

Still under construction, we see cranes ahead

Clark called for an opening. 
Bridge is "On demand" this time of year.

Warning signs for slow speed and
reduced width of the bridge

The workers have made great progress. The spans of the bridge appear to be near completion. They need to add the drawbridge to have it completed. The new bridge has the same low clearance as the old one, so even after the new sections is operable, we will still be unable to transit the bridge when closed.

Looking back at the bridge as it closes behind us

As we traveled the Shrewsbury River, Clark worried about our timing. Current against us had slowed us down considerably as we approached and traversed Sandy Hook Bay and the Shrewsbury River. We were coming into Pleasure Bay, and therefore our creek, very near to low tide - about one hour off low. Clark hoped we would be able to push our way into the creek.  Unfortunately, we also had strong, gusting winds pushing water out of the river to add to our concerns for depth. 

I watched the depth finders, one on port and one on starboard, calling out the numbers as we entered Pleasure Bay. At times we saw less than 3 feet under the keel. That did not bode well for what we would find when we reached our creek.

When we came to the place where we turned off the main channel for the side channel to our creek, we were happy to see markers in place to help guide us in. Some years we find markers missing making it harder to come in. This year we only saw a couple of  greens that were broken, but we saw several markers that were tilted right or left.

Broken green marker

"Soldiers" not quite in a neat row!

From the tip of Sandy Hook to where we dock our boat is a trip of almost two hours. Finally, at 4:30 we arrived at the entrance to our creek in Rumson, NJ. Clark said low tide here would be at 5:30. That was definitely cutting it closer than Clark wanted.

As we entered the creek, I once again called out the numbers. They rapidly dropped on both sides until I could see we had 0.5 feet of water showing on starboard and "---" showing on the port side. Eventually, they both showed "---" but Clark kept pushing through the muck. I looked behind us and saw a trail of black, stirred-up muck flowing out behind the boat. I asked Clark if we were still moving as we traveled at such a slow speed, I could not tell if we were going or aground. He said we were still making progress albeit very slowly. 

Finally we got past the entrance and numbers started to show on the starboard side. Unfortunately they were not believable numbers as they showed numbers like "112 feet" and "76.5 feet". Uh - no! Eventually both sides registered around 2 feet and we had made it past the first hurdle.

To dock at our dock, we have to turn the boat around somewhere along the creek and back up to our dock. There is insufficient width of deep enough water for us to turn around at our dock. Today, Clark decided to do the rotation well before our dock meaning he had to navigate a reasonably large portion of our creek in reverse! I told him that if I had to do that I'd be taking out the neighbor's boats along the way!

At 5:00 we arrived at our goose-poop covered dock. Even with the poop, it was a welcome sight. I secured us to the dock with temporary lines. Clark had an ice eater tied onto the outside of the dock. Between that and the goose poop, I decided not to try to tie up permanent lines until we had done some cleanup. And so the work of being home begins!