Boating with Sunset Delight: 2022: Escaping NJ to Shinnecock Inlet

Every year for the last 3 years, we have hoped to do some summer travel on the boat to explore areas to the north of New Jersey. Every year something came up to keep us home - like in 2020 it was Covid! This year we decided to make the trip. We were extra motivated to make it happen when our kids and grandkids said they would come along for parts of the ride.

Unfortunately, we arrived home from Florida with a laundry list of items to do on the boat. Top of the list was to have the boat hauled and the bottom scraped and painted with anti-fouling paint. Before that could happen, we needed to get our backup props resized and polished. That seemed to take forever. When the props were finally ready, the boatyard said they were full of boats and understaffed. We would have to wait. Finally the boatyard said we could bring the boat in on June 26th, but there would be no guarantee we would have the boat back for the 4th of July.

Since our granddaughter has been looking forward to seeing 4th of July NYC fireworks since last year, we did not want to disappoint, so we scheduled the haul out for immediately following the 4th of July weekend. We hoped for haul out on the 6th, but ended up with a haul out on the 7th. That made life interesting as we had agreed to watch our two grandchildren until the 13th of July meaning they would be with us while the boat was out of the water.

They got to see the boat up on the sling with its barnacle-coated bottom. They also got to climb up a tall ladder to board the boat while it was "on the hard". Our grandson is 4 and our granddaughter is 6. They are both monkeys - her more than him. They got used to the ladder in a hurry.

We said goodbye to the grandkids on the 13th as planned. The boat went back into the water on the 16th. The swapped-out props gave Clark good numbers for max RPM, etc. He was pleased with the performance with the clean bottom. Unfortunately, he discovered that one of our bow-thruster batteries was near dead. He uses that a lot, so we had to get new batteries before we could leave on our trip.

The batteries came from Ohio by truck. They were supposed to arrive on the 22nd July and fortunately came on the 21st instead. Each battery weighs 120 pounds. We had to take 2 off the boat and put the new ones in. Clark said they must be replaced as a pair even though only one showed poorly. The truck arrived around 1:30. At 4:00 we had the batteries swapped. With 95-degree heat and high humidity, it failed to be a pleasant job.

We had to get the batteries from the street to the boat, through the boat, and up and under the master stateroom bed where they sit. It took the two of us to lift them with Clark doing the lion's share of the work. Getting the batteries up and down stairs was the worst part. We used rugs to slide the batteries wherever possible inside the boat.

Since we finished the battery install at 4:00, we decided that we could finish provisioning the boat, close up the house, and move on board that night. I thought we would sleep on the boat at the dock. We finished all the prep work at exactly 8:00. I knew Clark wanted to watch the January 6th hearing on television, as did I. I got quite the surprise when Clark said he was ready to pull in the power and lines to get moving. What!? When did that happen!? He said we could listen to the hearing on the radio, and we should get going.

We arrived at the Atlantic Highlands breakwater around 9:30 and dropped anchor for the night in preparation for heading out into the Atlantic Ocean in the morning.

22 July 2022

Depart: Atlantic Highlands breakwater anchorage 8:00

Fuel stop at Atlantic Highlands - depart 9:35

Arrive: Shinnecock Inlet anchorage 7:15

Distance: 81 nm

Before we could get going on our summer vacation trip, we needed to get fuel. We took on 338 gallons at $5.44 per gallon. Yikes! It's not cheap! The dockhand said that boaters come there from Staten Island where the diesel is over $8.00 a gallon. That made $5.44 sound a lot better.

The prediction for the ocean was 5 to 6 foot waves with an 8 second period mostly coming on the side. I decided to run down and make lunch as we left Atlantic Highlands, so I would not have to deal with making sandwiches on a rocking boat. Come lunch time, Clark was surprised when I went down to "make lunch" and returned with his lunchbox about 1 minute later.

Having heard so much about shark sightings recently, I wondered if I might see some on our trip past Long Island. No such luck. We did see some pods of dolphins frolicking in the distance. None came near the boat. We saw plenty of seagulls on the water as well as a few balloons (I hate that), and one thing that looked from a distance like trap markings. Through the binoculars Clark said it was 4 basketballs in a net. Wonder who lost them!

We had a visitor / free loader on board, in the pilot house, for a portion of the trip. It's not clear when he came on board. Clark went below to use the head and found something. He called up to me, "This bug is huge!" I had seen this beast fly past earlier and was happy to see he continued on his way, but he must have circled back for a bit of a rest. Clark said that when he walked past to go to the head, the bug did not move, but when he came back up the bug backed up a few inches.

Clark took the helm, and I grabbed my phone to get a picture. As soon as I stood up with my camera, the bug flew out the window. On the one hand I was happy it departed on its own. On the other, I was disappointed I did not get a picture. He was about 4" long with a 4" wingspan with 2 wings. I am sure he was in the dragonfly family. I have never seen one so huge. It resembled the one shown below that

I found on the internet - only bigger.

Our destination for the night was an anchorage at Shinnecock Inlet. When Clark went to set a waypoint on the chart, he discovered a big problem. We have no charts loaded on our chart plotter for the waters we need to travel for our trip. Fortunately, we have charts on tablets to use instead. Even though the chart plotter does not show water depths, it still shows the map. Clark set an approximate waypoint, so he could use the autopilot to steer us there.

As we approached Shinnecock Inlet, the map on the chart plotter went bonkers. It jumped around and showed the boat in lots of places on the map - none of them correct. He had hoped to drop a waypoint for our return trip, but we had no idea where it would end up on the map, so he did not bother.

When we were about 30 minutes out from anchoring, I ran down to make dinner. As I told Clark where I was going, he said I should be back in 15 minutes to help him spot markers. Fortunately, I had a quick dinner planned and was back up to help him about 10 minutes after I went down. I had prepared my salad sometime during the afternoon to cut the boredom of looking at the ocean for hours on end. I had everything I needed for a shrimp stir fry, so it did not take long to cook.

Coming into the place he chose to anchor, the chart plotter showed us on land in Connecticut traveling about 150 mph. We were traveling at closer to 5 mph in Long Island. Crazy!