Days 7&8- Moving Up the New Jersey Coast

Well, THAT was an interesting night! We were sitting in the cockpit playing cards on a perfectly calm evening, watching fireworks in the distance. Out of nowhere, no warning, the wind hit us at 20 kts.  We quickly got the boat locked down and started checking marine weather. By then the wind was gusting to 40 kts and there was a line of thunderstorms rolling through. I don't think that we were ever in danger, but it was a good drill.   Adrenaline made it hard for me to sleep afterwards.

Then came morning (too early!) We had already decided to move on and head north today.  But always before we do anything else, the first task every morning is to take Shelby ashore. We hopped in the dinghy & headed toward the beach, when we discovered we were not alone! A small pod of dolphin swam with us to shore, perhaps 6 feet from the dinghy. Talk about magical moments! Wow!

Once on the beach we saw the outgoing tide had landed hundreds of horseshoe crabs for even more mating & egg laying. Once the water has receded many end up on their backs with no way to roll over, and they become fodder for sea birds and/or bake in the sun. Since they're such an important ecological asset- their eggs provide food for endangered birds, they're important to medical research, etc- plus the fact that I'm just an animal lover with a soft spot for horseshoe crabs, I spent a half hour turning about 200 crabs right side up.  Once on their feet they hurried back to the water's edge. However, "hurried" means something different to h. crabs than to you & me.

New Jersey beaches always have planes flying back & forth all day pulling  huge advertising local businesses, cell phone service or insurance companies . I don't know why they think it's effective, but there's always multiple planes in the air at any given time. 

I tried to get a pic of the plane pulling a Geico banner along with a smaller one that said "Jess, will you marry me?" (All together now: Awwwww!) but it's tough to get anything in focus as we bounce through the waves.

And here's another common NJ beach sight- something you'll never see me doing: parasailing. No thanks!

We said good-by to our beautiful spot on Cape Henlopen and headed for Cape May, New Jersey.   The forecast suggested excellent sailing, and we had a great hop over to Cape May.  We thought "let's get a marina at Cape May" giving ourselves the treat of a shore side rest and walk around town.  Nope not happening.  The one marina that could fit us said they did not have space for us until much later in the afternoon.  So we bought fuel and filled the water tanks and headed back into the ocean.  Shortly there after the weather deteriorated. Motoring was difficult with the wind right on our nose and tended to feel more like slowly bashing through the waves. We decided to try sailing- taching  back and forth up the coast. That, too, was slow, but at least there was no constant hum of motors.  We saw an opportunity to duck in to Townsend Inlet NJ around 4pm and we took it.  

Townsend Inlet has a low drawbridge across it, but the bridge opens for boat traffic.  We arranged a bridge opening then shot our way through the jetties.  There is a turn right before the bridge where we suddenly realized the opening section of bridge is quite narrow between the pilings- maybe 35 feet- but we squeezed through ok. It took some poking around the inlet to find a spot to anchor that was close to a beach for dogwalking, but we did find it.  We anchored at Bones Beach, which was just shoreward of the bridge.  There's even a bar across the water that has a steel drum band playing, so we will enjoy that! We had a restful evening with the boat swinging on the fast moving tide and some little frogs on the outside of the hull singing to us.

Once the sun got  low in the sky the weather turned cooler. A red letter day- I felt like putting a sweater on!

The next morning (Day 8) starts with getting a bridge opening and running of the jetties timed to coordinate with the beginning of the outgoing tide.  The weather forecast was for beautiful sailing with just the right wind speed from the perfect direction.  Which of course lasted for about an hour.  Then we got punched with very strong winds from the wrong direction.  We made our way very carefully into the Atlantic City inlet after many hours of slow plodding in rough ocean conditions.  

We could have anchored at Atlantic City with all its glitz, but opted instead to head up the coast using the New Jersey intercoastal water way.  This required getting our 58 foot tall mast under a bridge marked as 59 foot clearance.  That was a moment!

The New Jersey intercoastal provides a very narrow channel through an otherwise quite shallow marsh.  One must watch the channel markers very closely as the path zigzags across the expansive marsh.  Our new bug screens were appreciated as the marsh sent its multitudes of horse flies to challenge us.  We dropped anchor in a pleasant cove just inside Little Egg Inlet with time to relax before dinner and a nice sunset.