Darkness and current
25 September 2011 | Along the New Jersey shore
Spencer
It is 0730 and we are motoring south along the NJ coastline.
Backing up a couple days... we sailed from Mystic to Port Jefferson, NY and planned to make a pre-dawn departure to catch some of the current in the Long Island Sound moving towards NYC very early in the morning. I let Kathleen stay in bed and took care of the usual items in the pitch black darkness at 0500. It was the darkest that I have "seen" ever in our cruising. I slowly motored out the long, narrow, rock-lined entrance to Port Jefferson - quickly scanning instruments, radar, blinking red and green buoys and the occasional spotlight sweep for any unlit traffic and the unlit buoys. Once clear of the rocks, I pushed up the power and moved out into deeper, safer waters... Later in the day I had all the sails up while we motored, to save about 50% on fuel burn.
The plan was to anchor in a small bay just a few miles before Hell Gate and catch the early morning current through, but as I studied the currents, I saw that we could continue on and have a sleigh ride right on by NYC and over to Atlantic Highlands - saving us a day! We were joined by another sailboat that slowly passed us and made a wrong turn near the gate towards Rikers Island prison! I watched them turn a quick 180 and they decided to follow us the rest of the way - good idea - we've now done this trip several times.
We set our anchor among about a dozen other cruising sailboats in Atlantic Highlands, NJ and watched a couple depart for an appartent night run down the coast. We had a restful night and were up at 0500 to start on our 13 hour run south.
The question right now is - can we get into Little Egg Harbor Inlet and anchor in a strange, questionalble anchorage area in order to be near to where my sister has rented a house with her family. If it works out, we could be walking distance from her. I plan to call Boat US when we are close to the "uncharted" inlet and ask them about the entrance - we are also timing our arrival with a rising, near high tide. Our backup plan is to go another hour south to one of our favorite anchorages - The Cove in Atlantic City!