2021: Migrating South to Florida Once Again

After a very busy summer, we are back on Sunset Delight for our seasonal trek to Florida. Our busy summer included several delightful family gatherings.  We were blessed to enjoy all of our children, their wives, and our grandchildren together on two different occasions. Given one family is in Idaho, the other is in Connecticut, and we are either in New Jersey or Florida, we rarely get everyone together.

The Woodworth Clan at a 
Family Gathering in Pennsylvania

Grandkids enjoying Atlantic Ocean beach time

 

We contended with standard maintenance items on the house and boat while home as well as some major work. Besides getting a new roof on the house, we updated our dock to replace the one we had that had lost some of its floatation.

We had to wait until the dock work was completed because Clark had related electrical work to do once the crew completed their work. Once that job was completed, Clark found a rapidly approaching weather window that would be good for ocean travel off the coast of New Jersey. It took us two full days of activity to prep the boat and then we were on our way.

13 October 2021
Depart: Home (Rumson, NJ)  4:55 pm
Arrive: Atlantic Highlands Anchorage 6:15 pm

 After working all day to load the boat with clothes and food, with a short break for a quick lunch with neighbors, we pulled in our lines and headed out towards Sandy Hook to get a jump start for traveling on Thursday down the coast.

 Once settled in for the night, we rushed to the television to capture the evening weather from the news. Sadly, we got nothing but a blank screen. The satellite television we fixed a couple of years ago had died sometime in the last couple of months without our knowledge since we were not using the tv on the boat for most of the summer. Clark thinks it might have been a victim of an electrical storm.

Given the lack of satellite, we tried to get stations via the over-the-air network. Being close to New York, we expected a strong signal. No way! Clark thinks that we got a reflection off the Highland's hills which cancelled the signal. Thus, we had no television for the night.

14 October 2021
Depart: Atlantic Highlands Anchorage 7:45
Arrive: Atlantic City, Brigantine Anchorage, 5:15
Distance: 82 nm

Conditions: Sunny day; 63 degrees increasing to 73; cool breeze on the ocean; calm seas; light swells around 1 to 2 feet (perfect)

 Being back on the water for our seasonal migration, we were up before the sun today.

Sunrise at Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Our target for leaving this morning was 7:30. We would have made it out on time had we not pulled up a very large amount of vegetation with the anchor. Clark had to stop bringing in the anchor multiple times to remove huge clumps of icky weeds from the chain.

As he got ready to depart this morning, Clark saw on his phone that it was foggy out. It turned out not to be a problem, i.e. “Pea Souper”; we could still see everything although through a bit of a haze.

 

Hazy start to the day at Highlands, NJ

Twin Lights Lighthouse and
the Highlands Bridge

Last night Clark did the math related to the distance down the coast and our rate of speed and calculated that the best we could do traveling in daylight would be Atlantic City. He had hoped for Cape May, but that was not to be.

Just before we pulled into our anchorage for the night, I rushed to make dinner so that I could take advantage of “free” electric due to the boat engines running. With a bit more work after we had the anchor down, we enjoyed an early dinner with a lovely sunset.

Sunset view of Atlantic City, NJ

Atlantic City Casinos