Isobel hangs out with the local skate board gang.

Yesterday we had a day ashore to do laundry, food shop, and hang out. Atlantic Highlands is a very nice little community and I would recommend it as a great stopover for cruisers. The village doesn't have the normal seaside T-shirt shops, instead it is a "real" town with restaurants of all sorts, a small, well stocked, local owned, marine store, and a very nice food store for provisioning.

Last night the front (Line of clouds you can see in yesterday's post) came through with all the ferocity of a winter cold front. The wind blew sustained 25 with gusts to 30, and the wind clocked from west to north. Boats dragged in the anchorage and swung wildly at anchor. We had to secure all the canvas (mostly our aging sail cover) to keep it from flogging itself to pieces (and driving us crazy). We watched two poor boats who had anchored East of the breakwater, getting rolled and bounced by the chop that came across Raritan Bay.

Today we will wait until 1:00 pm to depart. This way we can use the current to our advantage up through the Verrazano Narrows, past Manhattan and through the East River into Long Island Sound.