Monday 21 October 2019
Last night after I did the daily post and after my second "sun"downer of the evening I was sitting in the cabin, alternating between listening to the rain on the roof and planning the next couple of days. There is something positively sleepy about sitting in a boat at a mooring or at an anchor, watching other boats bob in their moorings and still other boats coming in to their docks or moorings. Very pleasant!

I didn't elaborate much on the visit to Atlantic Highlands on my post yesterday so allow me to do a little to start off today's post. For me I thing the trip out to Sandy Hook was the highlight. The lighthouse there was originally built on the tip of the point back when it was originally constructed as a life saving station. Since then the point has naturally extended outward towards Coney Island by at least a kilometre! That's a rate of something like 4 meters a year if my figuring is correct. Of course some years with major storms that rate would be more and sometimes less but the big number is the 1 kilometre.

There was a significant military presence out there right up to the end of the Cold War when they had Nike missles based there and during WWII there were 7000 permanent residents with frequent training and deployment augmentation of an additional 3000 troops. This meant that there was a large community out there with schools, community centre, gas station, gym, etc. Some of the houses are still there, particularly the officers married quarters. Hurricane Sandy did a fair amount of damage but the Federal Parks organization are trying to get some reconstruction done in a very novel way. Residential taxes in NJ are astoundingly high. If you have a property that you paid say $150,000 for ten to twenty years ago you could easily be paying $10-20,000/yr in residential taxes or even more! On the other hand you could have one of the officers quarters out on Sandy Hook on a 30 (Barb thinks the guide said 60) year free lease. You just have to pay the renovation costs yourself and do it to their standard. At the end you have a beautiful house out in an area that most people pay to get to see. The guide at one of the museums told us about one fellow who got one of the duplexes this way, fixed it up and is now renting both sides out for $4,000/wk, each side! Each side is a 4 bedroom unit and could sleep 8. And he is full all the time. Apparently, in the interests of saving these historic properties the Parks Commission has no problem with you making a buck out of it.

There are a number of boats anchored here behind the breakwater which from my obviously faulty recollection wasn't possible because of space considerations but apparently it is. There is even one Canadian boat anchored on the outside of the breakwater which was a huge surprise to me but, hey, to each their own.

Yesterday we sprayed some of that engine belt treatment stuff you can get to stop the squealing when you first start up and the belt is having to work extra hard to turn the alternator to charge the depleted batteries. Along with no squeal belt we also got to test the detector that we had put in the bilge. Apparently it didn't like the fumes from the belt spray. You certainly aren't going to miss the alarm if it goes off for real. As it was we had to open the hatches to vent off the bilge so it would stop.

Last night there wasn't nearly as much wind as we have experienced at other places on this trip - even at Port Washington. The forecast is still good for us continuing so if we do go I will post this around lunchtime and update it through the day until midnight when I will start another. It looks like we will have winds from the NE starting at 15kts and diminishing through the day and night. Should give us a good broad reach all the way down. Unfortunately the longer range forecast shows Wednesday and Thursday the winds backing around to 15kts from the SE or right on the nose for us to carry on directly to Norfolk so we will go up the Delaware after all; nice country and we will at least be moving.

This morning there was a bit of a wait until the launch started running so I got at finishing the reinstall of the solar controllers. You may recall me belly-aching about them earlier on this cruise. Well it turns out that indeed, it was me that goofed on the original install. You DO have to connect the load portion of the device. Here I thought that the batteries being charged would be the load, in and of themselves but nope. The controller needs to detect a load on the batteries so I ran a two wire cable from the back of the 25 volt switch panel at the nav station back to the controllers and now they are happy. Live and learn I guess.

Well it's after lunch and we're off. The forecast remains favourable for today and tomorrow with Wednesday looking more like what we have come to expect on this trip. So, we are going to push on as fast as we can down the Jersey coast overnight with an objective of Lewes of Cape May for and anchorage tomorrow night and then motoring up the Delaware on Wednesday.

Wish us luck. If I'm not too bagged I will update this at supper time and then again before midnight.

Ok. Here is an update. It's now 14h30 and we are motor sailing down the Jersey shore towards Cape May. Exiting NY harbour close to Sandy Hook wasn't nearly as bad as it has been in the past and as forecast the winds aren't much at all. Maybe 10kts. There is still a blue water roll coming in from the Atlantic which with our course is almost on our beam. Nelleke is fine but it does detract from the experience for the crew. The good news is that it is supposed to die down through the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Second update. Sundown and the running lights are on. Little wind but still sea from last nights wind. Will be at Barnegat Inlet by 21h00