Day 2 - Lessons Learned
So again the wifi stinks and I can’t post this to the website. Tomorrow I am going to try to hit a place that has decent wi-fi so I can catch up on posts.
We left Liberty Landing at 6:30 AM headed to Cape May, NJ. We kept going back and forth about whether to stay or move on. The weather apps said 2 foot seas and the wind would be picking up all day. We thought if we left early enough we would have a window of weather that wouldn’t be too bad. There was the first mistake of the day. There were many more on today’s ride. Weather apps are about as accurate as weathermen i guess. The 2 feet seas didn’t exist. The further we got from NY city the rougher it got. I always hear people say I was in 6-8 foot seas and it was really more like 3-4. We thought they might we 6 footers today. When we got into port we looked at the conditions and they were 6-10 footers. I learned that the boat cabinets have locks for a reason. The outboard motor can drop from the locked position if it is rough enough. Nothing is ever really secure down below. Do not try to go to the bathroom when your boat is bouncing like a cork in the ocean. Get the life jackets out when the weather gets really rough. Our boat handles the rough water better than we do. All in all it was a rough ride but it could have been worse. We knew enough to bail out. Thanks to Don, who has the boat next to us in Barrington, for giving us a heads up on Manasquan inlet as a bailout point.
Coming in the channel was a bit hairy with the waves and surfing but we got it. We are docked at Hoffman’s Marina. Very cute area that we plan to explore tomorrow. The wind has picked up all day. It is supposed to blow 25 with gusts to 30. It was all that and more. Our slip is near the end of the gas dock so we feel it all. There is a wicked current that whips through here. It sounds like a river flowing against the hull.
We were only too happy to get off the boat and explore. This marina has a laundry facility and nice showers. We walked down to the restaurant in the marina, Waypoint 622. We grabbed a sandwich and a burger. Food was good and reasonably priced. Tonight we went to another restaurant a little bit beyond the Waypoint. It was called Waternman’s Tavern. Steaks were good! We walked back to the boat.
We spent a good part of the day washing the salt off the boat and trying to put everything back where it belongs. We looked into the weather for the next few days and figured out our next move. The weather is supposed to be windy and high storm surges until Monday night. We talked to the locals and decided to pick up the ICW here. We will follow that down to Atlantic City and then hit the ocean again. The ICW will be slow and a longer route than running offshore but at least we can be making some headway. We will leave here Monday morning and stay in Atlantic City Monday night. We are hoping the seas calm down so that Tuesday we can head offshore and down to Delaware. Today we traveled just over 46 miles in 2 1/2 hours.