Day 53 – August 22nd 2011 – Barnegat Bay – 39 45.555N:74 07.000W
Doug went ashore to bail out the dinghy and have a shower while I tidied the cabin, vacuumed the floor and printed out a few reports so that I could work on them while moving today. We still have laundry hanging in the cabin which hopefully will dry before too long. I let go of the ball at 09.00, Doug had to motor into the wind for me to unhook, the tide was running so fast the water rushed past the hull as if we were actually sailing. We headed out down the Hudson, set the gib and sailed along at 8.5 knots with the current, past the Statue of Liberty and off out into the ocean, sun shining and all’s well as I update my blog while underway. The sailing and weather was so perfect that we put up the mainsail and turned off the engine, for 9 hours along the New Jersey shore. This was a stretch that I was not looking forward to as most boaters overnight right down to Cape May, we wanted to stop in Atlantic City so we decided to just do day sails. Such a perfect day, I worked below for a while, Doug tinkered with the engine and arrived at the entrance to Barnegate Bay, we had read that this was a difficult entrance due to the huge waves entering this small channel. As we approached we could see fishing boats hovering around this shoal with waves crashing over the rocks and another sailboat coming in so we slowed down in the channel to let them pass so that they could lead the way, lots of fun in the swells and rip tides. See now why most people go straight to Cape May. We did our usual drive by to check out the marinas, drove into one marina to fill up with water. They did not have any so we went off and grabbed a ball in this little shallow bay surrounded with bull rushes and enjoyed the beautiful sunset while Doug barbecued some chicken. After spending two nights in New York with the very swift current it is so nice to be in still water, think I will sleep well tonight and dream of gambling tomorrow night in Atlantic City.