Down the Jersey Coast

Atlantic Highlands, NJ is a nice place to wait for good weather. At least, that's what we kept telling ourselves. But after day 7, it just didn't ring as true as it did on day 1 or 2. While this town has all the amenities that all sailors could want, we were quite ready to go. We were waiting for 24 hours of good weather to make the offshore passage down to Cape May. Good weather at this point is defined as winds out of the north or west, settled seas and no fog. While it's possible to make the trip in less than ideal conditions, the trip down the Jersey coast can be risky should conditions deteriorate once out as few of the inlets along the coast are viable in bad weather. So we waited.

But it was worse for others. Several southbound boats had been waiting for over two weeks. We arrived on Saturday and watched all week for a weather window and also watched the anchorage continually fill with folks heading south. Wednesday initially looked promising so we duly stowed our dinghy, prepared some offshore food, and made the boat ready for the ocean. But the cold front stalled and we awoke on Wednesday to soupy fog and more southerly winds. Our frustration eased a bit as on Thursday, several of our friends began to show up to help us pass the time. And we tried to help out some of the other cruisers in any small way. I went up the mast to retrieve a lost halyard for Blue Belle, a Gozzard 36 from Ohio. Dennis and Caroline, on there way to their new home in Florida, had arrived in Atlantic Highlands via the inland waterway canals and down the Hudson River. Fellow Chesapeake Bay Sabre Association members, George and Julie aboard Seaquel arrived after a trip up to Maine on their Bristol 38.8. Nice to see them as we had been keeping track of each other via email for the last month.

Fortunately, we were not on a schedule. Our patience finally paid off handsomely. A strong cold front at long last arrived on Friday afternoon such that Saturday broke clear with a brisk northwest wind. It looked like a boat parade as at least 20 boats left Atlantic Highlands with us early Saturday morning to head offshore. We kept company with 5 other sailboats and we could tell by the radio conversations that others were doing the same thing.

We rounded Sandy Hook, NJ, launched our spinnaker and we were finally heading south. We didn't know it at the time but we were to fly the spinnaker for the next 11 hours, only taking it down for safety sake as the sun went down. The breeze died down for about 20 minutes as we were rounding the buoys off of Barnegat Inlet but came back in earnest and held until we were 10 miles from Cape May. The sun settled on the horizon in a fiery ball of orange for what seemed like forever. As it did, the lights of Atlantic City blazed on the western horizon providing sufficient light to trim the sails. Twenty miles south of Atlantic City, the lights dulled and the crescent moon slipped below the horizon permitting some pretty serious stargazing under the crystal clear sky. The clear night also allowed great visibility for a few shooting stars. The running lights of our little flotilla were all clearly visible and aligned like a row of ducks, almost evenly spaced at about 1 mile intervals. While not much sleeping got done, the conversations on the radio between boats kept up some measure of entertainment.

The passage down the New Jersey coast is about 120 nautical miles. We generally figure that we can maintain 5 knots of boat speed. Thus we figured on arriving at the inlet just after sunrise. However, at an average speed of 6 knots, that would put us there at 3 am, just the time we did arrive. We were a little hesitant to enter the inlet at night as the rock jetty extends out seaward for about a mile. An accidental landing there would be pretty darn painful. Our first approach was quicky aborted as we could not see the channel's direction past the well marked ends of the breakwater. The lights along the shore line wrecked our night vision and obscured the navigation lights in shore. At this point, several small fishing boats approached and headed in. Anti- climatically, we simply followed them in. Once inside, we pulled the boat outside the channel, promptly ran aground, dropped overboard the anchor and 50 feet of chain and called it quits for the night. It was 4:00 am.

I told Joyce that if she wanted to go up the Delaware tomorrow (Sunday) then wake me at 6:30 am. The timing that early was important to catch the current up the Delaware. At 6:30 she made her first attempt to which she was rudely rebuffed. But after we were rolled severely by several passing fishing boats speeding out, I realized that any more sleep would be impossible. Time to go. 15 minutes later, the anchor was up and we headed for the Delaware Bay.

As we made our way out of the Cape May canal leading into the Delaware Bay, we radioed our friends to check on their progress. Because of their mast height restrictions of the two bridges in the Cape May canal, most of our flotilla was forced to make the long jog out around Cape May and enter the Delaware Bay from there. Only George and Julie thought that they could make it under the 55 foot clearance of the bridge. Turns out they were right but only by 12 inches at low tide! Most of the boats that had kept going were now about 5-10 miles ahead of us.

We arrived in Chesapeake City, the northern entrance to the Chesapeake almost exactly two months to the day after leaving. Once there, not even the music from the band ashore nor the rumbles from passing motorboats could keep us from a deep slumber. After all we were back in our backyard. Nice to be back. Especially as the category 4 Hurricane Floyd is churning up the Atlantic creating dangerous swells along the coast. Our weather window wasn't open for long.

The kitties came through the ocean passage like real troupers. We were worried as it was going to be the longest time underway with them so far, with the conditions possibly becoming rough in the ocean. But, they hardly complained except for food (which is normal for them). Strangely, they usually stay below when we're sailing or have the engine on. But around 2 am, they both came outside wanting to take a tour of the deck. As we didn't want them to accidentally fall overboard, we had to resort to locking them below until we anchored. And as mysteriously as Atlas had resorted to hiding in his litterbox while underway, recently he has not done so. They both have become sailing kitties after all!