The wind that we described yesterday at Atlantic Highlands did keep on blowing for quite a while...
The good thing was that we only had to endure the full brunt of it until we rounded Sandy Hook, and entered the Atlantic Ocean...
Then we were in the lee of the land for the Northwest wind, and it was a pretty nice sailing beginning.
Soon the wind tapered off... (as predicted)....and motor-sailing was the ticket for the rest of the 24 hours.

The Atlantic was not bad at all...1 to 2 foot waves... on top of a very spread out swell.... (16 seconds between the crests of the swells..) (swells maybe 5 to 7 feet high..., but so far apart, you didn't really even know you were being lifted). The swells might have started at the Hurricane that was harassing Bermuda... (Rapheal, or something like that).

Things were going along OK... motor-sailing along at about 6.8 to 7.2 knots...
keeping in touch with the s/v Second Wind, and the s/v Rhiannon...
when, at 0200 hours, the VHF came "on" with a "May-DAY" call from the s/v Tranquility.
They had run up on a shoal near the Little Egg Inlet (just north of Atlantic City).
Why exactly the s/v Tranquility was "that close" to shore is still a question.
We were 'running' the 3 mile line (off the coast).

Anyway.. they were hard aground on the "Breakers Shoal", laying over on their side, and taking breaking waves over the sides. They were unsure if there was damage below decks. The USCG, and Towboat US responded fairly quickly.... I'm sure it didn't seem quick enough to 'Tranquility'....
We were already way past their location....(which also shocked us.... as Tranquility left Atlantic Highlands at 0800 hours; We didn't leave until almost 1500 hours. How did we catch, and pass them?

I met the couple on Tranquility at a meeting of cruisers the night before at the Atlantic Highlands gas dock...(discussing the NJ 'rounding). They had just completed a circumnavigation of the world. :( bummer of a night for them).

The wave action and shoal configuration of Little Egg Inlet precluded any assistance that we could render, without placing the AB or any other of our convoy in danger... (dark, windy, shallow, and a location we've never been in).
We listened for about an hour...as Tranquility actually slipped off the shoal under wave action... but Tow Boat US, and the USCG escorted them to Atlantic City...to more closely examine the boat for damage.

The rest of the night...was fairly benign... We rounded Cape May Point at 0830 hours, and motor-sailed up Delaware Bay.... finally anchoring at N 39 30.747 W 075 34.394, almost exactly 24 hours after beginning at Atlantic Highlands. We'll ease out of this Reedy Is. anchorage in the AM, and catch the ebb tide through the C&D canal, and into the Chesapeake Bay.

The s/v Rhiannon dropped off at Cape May Harbor for rest, and sightseeing....
The s/v Second Wind made such good time with the tidal push... we're assuming they proceeded through the C&D this afternoon. We were about 10 miles behind them when we rounded Cape May, and as such just barely caught the last of the flood tide going up the Delaware.