Atlantic Highlands
21 July 2020 | Atlantic Highlands NJ
Mike
July 21, 2020 Tuesday
It was another long twelve-hour day and it was already hot when we pulled the anchor at seven AM in Atlantic City and headed out Absecon Inlet to find a gentle swell and a breeze from the north-east. We motored north, rolling with the swell, with wind dead ahead. Once we made the turn toward port off Little Egg Harbor, we raised the sails and enjoyed a close reach all day long making seven knots across the clean blue ocean. With the sails up the rolling in the waves stopped.
The water was so clear we could see rays gliding under the surface and dark balls of bait fish that would be splashing on the surface locked together in a tight school as if captured in a net. It was a glorious day to be out on the ocean as we traveled up the coast a few miles off shore. We had very little boat traffic to contend with, only a few fish floats, and best of all almost no black flies to deal with. I enjoyed the time not swatting flies by entering the waypoints into the plotter for the Erie Canal locks and lift bridges, a tedious exercise but hopefully it will make it easier to coordinate the passage. I was disappointed to see so little navigation information in the Navionics files on the chart plotter but fortunately the charts I had in my tablet computer, also by Navionics, provided a lot of the missing information to find the locks and bridges. I am confused why Navionics charts are not consistent.
The wind shifted to the south-east as the day progressed and was blowing twelve to fifteen on our bow as we made the turn around Sandy Point and headed south again to anchor off Atlantic Highlands under the protective high bluffs. Even with the bluffs we still had a nice cooling breeze as we grilled dinner and ate in the cockpit. It was a beautiful sunset as the distant lights on the impressive Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with the Manhattan skyscrapers beyond the bridge.
We were tired but we had made it an impressive distance in just four days, a great start for our summer cruise.