Beyond Cape May...

South Jersey Marina

Seven days after arriving in Cape May, we finally got the short weather window to escape and continue on our journey.  Don't get me wrong, this town is a beautiful little spot and I would recommend it to anyone, the old Victorian homes, the miles long beach.  But, we just needed to move on and inland, now that hurricane Matthew is getting revved up.  So, finally on October 2nd, our chance opened up and away we went.  Just getting out of the marina was a challenge with the current/tide, and after another little bump on our little boat we were out and on our way.

Lewes Ferry Terminal

Cape May proper is actually an island as there is a canal that cuts across the cape a few miles from its tip. This canal shortens the distance to the Delaware Bay; cutting off several miles that going back onto the Atlantic and south around the cape adds.  However the canal has limitations; you can't have a mast height more than 55 feet. We fall into that canal category, we think our mast height is 50 feet. We came to the first bridge and the measure board said there was 54 feet of room, .... the bridge looks awful low and our mast looks really tall.  There's no stopping...and the gut wrenches because you're not 100% sure you've got enough room...the perception from the boat deck is that you're going to crash.  We did have enough room and by how much,... I have no idea, but enough.

Wave action on the Delaware

Just as the canal enters the Delaware Bay is where the terminal for the ferries that cross the Delaware to Lewes in Maryland.  They are big... and thankfully were not scheduled to move as we went by.

barge and tug combo

We came out into the Delaware to more big bumps, it looked harsher than what the reports said, but manageable.  To boot there was fog, so thankful for a chart plotter because you can get very disoriented without a compass bearing to follow.  A little lataer we put up a bit of sail to help stabilize the boat.  We were running with the tide,  clipping along over 7 knots so didn't need too much sail or we'd be a bit out of control.  The water settled down after a few hours and we continued along at a good pace.  This trip can be a long and tedious day, the plan for passage is to have a tide with you all the way or at least most of it and with the wind from the south.  We had the tide, but the wind came from the east, not bad, out of the north is the worst.
About 15 nautical miles away from the canal, the engine warning alarm came on... it was overheating.  We shut it down and Al went down to assess the situation.  To get to the engine compartment, a lot of stuff had to be moved, which happened quickly.  Did I mention we were on the edge of the shipping channel... and now the wind had completely died...and the current is nearing the end of the flood.  Not a great situation to be in.  These ships throw out a lot of wake, never mind the larger stink pots that don't slow down for sailboats.  Their wake can be as big or bigger than some of the ships.
One sailboat that had been behind us, haled to see if we were ok.  Al was still assessing at that point so there was nothing they could do for us.  Meanwhile, I am trying to find any breath of wind to keep us moving forward and out of the channel. Oh did I mention there was a big channel marking buoy, sitting on the bottom that I had to get us by too.  As it turned out the fan belt had blown, we had a replacement, all is ok... well not really Al couldn't for the life of him get it on.  The cabin around the motor at this point is really hot, as you can imagine from an engine that's been running for several hours by now.  Al sweated and struggled for most of a couple hours trying to get this stupid belt to go on - no luck.  He finally brought out another old belt that the blown one had once replaced.  It was just looser, not blown, so he put that one on and we carried on.  Now the tide has turned and our 7 - 8 knots is now 3.5 - 4 knots and the end of the day is closing in on us.  When the sun goes down at 6:45 its dark within half an hour.  There really is only 12 hours of daylight to deal with here.
We finally got to the canal at 6 pm, with 8 nautical miles to get to the marina where we were going to stop for the night.  The good part is now the tide is with us again and we're back to 7 plus knots.

The canal lights are on the stands

The canal is very wide, and has a mercury vapour light (amber street light) every 500 feet, so that part is good.  We got to the marina just after the sun went down, so there's still enough light to get through their very narrow entrance and tie up to the dock, phew, and then it was dark.
This marina is in the middle of no where, doesn't really have amenities other than a bathroom and shower (in bad shape).  We were spoilt with the showers at Cape May.  The walk to the bathroom if we didn't want to use our boat head is 647 steps... each way, I counted.   We had hoped to order in from a place that delivers... they were closed on Sundays.  Al instead made a great dinner for us, which we enjoyed in our cockpit, with some wine and chocolate (chocofellars, ya!!) and were glad that the day ended as well as it had.  Things could have been a lot different.

Big ship in the canal

Next morning, we slept in...tried to get a mechanic to come and get the new fan belt on and do a service on the engine.  We are still assessing our hurricane plan; this marina is a hurricane hole, but Matthew is still a week away it seems, and there's not much here.  So, as the tide turned to our favour, we decided to push on to the next hurricane hole to check out, we hadn't heard from the mechanic either so on we went.

Chesapeake City on the canal

Coming into Chesapeake Bay

We passed Chesapeake City in the canal which is considered the home port, so the green cans and red cones switch their meaning.  Red right returning... so now the red is on the port and the green on our starboard as we're heading downstream now.  When we got to the end of the canal it opens out to the Chesapeake Bay.  It is quite beautiful, with many varying depths.  There is a shipping channel down the middle which is best to stick with.  There can be very shallow places where it looks great, but not. The picture of the bay below and to the right had a depth of around 2 feet though out except a narrow channel down one side that is dredged.  We didn't bother with the sail as we were again well over 7 knots with the tide and had to dodge and weave through big waves all along the way.

Chesapeake Bay

Another reason to stay in the shipping channel is that there are crab pot floats everywhere else.  We know of two boats already that have had an altercation with them being wrapped around their props, and we really don't want that to happen to us, or anybody for that matter.  Being vigilant at all times is imperative, as they are of all kinds of colours, black and blue being common, go figure, on dark water.

The moon and Venus, barely

Evening in Worton Creek

Later in the afternoon, we finally arrived at our next hurricane hole, Worton Creek and the marina named after it.  Oh its shallow, Al thought we were plowing snow coming in as there didn't seem to be any depth to the place at all, but we didn't get hung up and made it to the dock.  We were greeted by the dockmaster who was just leaving for the day, they close at 4:30, but he hadn't quite left so helped us tie up at the fuel dock for the night.




There were these two fellows in a boat somewhat smaller than ours that are stopped here overnight. They are working their way north through the Delaware down to Cape May and then north to New York city. We offered what we'd experienced coming from that way, because that's what you do. They've had quite the journey so far too. We chatted with them for a while, then they and us ordered pizza to be delivered to the marina for supper.  Cold beer and pizza, can't complain, it was warm out.


This morning, we had the mechanic come by to get that darn new fan belt on, change the oil and put in a new impeller.  We should now be good to go for another 50 hours. The belt even took him quite a while to get on.
We are staying here tonight, still considering just staying here until Matthew goes away.  We are in no way going to take chances on getting in its path to be sure.  This little spot could be just the ticket.... as Matthews route becomes more clear we will adjust our plans.  If we stay here, there will be some prep to be done on the boat to give her the best chance of getting through this, without us on board.
So it's nearing the end of another day, Al is making a seafood chowder for supper, yum... and I'm typing, all is good.
We are lucky,... friends we made earlier in our trip chose to go the outside route to Norfolk and are now stuck on the outside coast right in line with Matthews route as of today - sure wish we could do something for them.  Their plan was sound when they made it, but Mother Nature being as she is changed the game plan.  They are prepping their boat already, getting ready to leave her as best they can with the best hope for a good outcome after the storm passes.  We are all hoping the storm makes a right hand turn and goes further out to sea, lets all hope.  There is a lot of damage and carnage in this storms wake for sure and there will be lots more.
Hurricanes are much scarier when one is closer to the line of fire.
Talk again soon....

Along the Jersey coast to Cape May

We ended up spending a couple days in Manasquan due to a small craft wind warning.  The weather had been great up till then, hot and sunny until now.  It has been an unusual start to fall with a large high pressure along the eastern part of the continent, holding off any nasty weather.  Now though, its to break down and bits of different weather is sneaking in.  We are still in shorts and t-shirts but the wind has really picked up on the ocean.  When we finally left Manasquan, we anticipated an end to the small craft warning not long after we left port.   That didn't happen, in fact they extended it for another four hours there.  So to say the least it was quite bumpy at the end of the channel going back onto the ocean and heading south.  There were 3 to 5 foot rollers coming from one direction and waves coming from other directions.  There was no way we would be able to get back into Manasquan, so we just kept going.
 The further from shore we got, the more manageable the waves were, and the further south we went, the waves stopped showing their white tops.  We made good time in our little boat, we surfed down one wave at 8 knots...our hull speed is only 6 knots.  If I said it wasn't scary at the start, I'd be lying.  My stomach was in jumbles as we left Manasquan, but settled down as the day went along and we got used to dealing with the waves.
 The journey to Atlantic city was a long one and we managed to get in before the sun went down to a little bay where we anchored out for the first time.  It was well protected so there were no worries there of dragging the anchor.

 Across the bay you could see the casinos that the city is known for, with their billboards that lit up the entire side of the building, kind of made a mess of my sunset shots.

The next morning we headed out early in the hopes of getting to Cape May, New Jersey.  Again, it was lumpy, but not as bad as the day before.  The sun was shining, the wind was sort of in our favour so we still made good time to Cape May.   All along the coast is incredible sand beaches that stretch for miles at a time and as you pass by each town you may see a small amusement park right on the shore.
The wind was picking up again for the last hour into the Cape and made for a rolling ride in.  There is an anchorage right beside the Coast Guard station where we finally found a suitable spot to drop the hook.  We have to take tides, currents and wind into consideration now too, along with the depth of the anchorage.  This coast guard happens to be the only training centre for cadets of the coast guard.  They are in training all day and into the night, we know because we can hear them yelling as they are doing whatever cadets do.  Then there is 'taps' as the sun goes down and a loud rendition of their national anthem on queue every morning at 8.
That night was a bit hairy on the hook (anchor) as the wind picked up substantially, so we were on anchor alert.  We took shifts over night to make sure our little boat didn't drag the anchor or any other boat didn't either towards us. On my shift, I would check around me every now and then to make sure that all the landmarks were where they were supposed to be, which meant that we hadn't dragged. Just a little nerve wracking to say the least.  The anchor alarm did go off a couple times over the night, but we were really swinging around in a circle which made it come on. It was a relief to see in the morning that the anchor had stayed put.  We are very new at anchoring overnight, so every time is a new learning experience.  We have now put just chain on the anchor and have learned a bit more about anchor alarms, so should feel even better about our next time anchoring overnight.

South Jersey Marina - the stick is us

In the morning the wind hadn't settled, so we moved to a marina from which we could get supplies and re stock the boat better.  The marina has a shuttle that takes us to where we want to get said supplies and has been very helpful as what we needed was in two opposite directions and the weather wasn't the greatest for walking far.

Resort hotel from the 1800's

We did walk one way into the town proper to check it out.  It is considered one of the oldest vacation resort towns in north america, and it shows in the elegant beach front homes and the old hotels there.  In the older section of the city there are homes on the sycamore lined streets that date back to the mid 1800's that have been carefully looked after or renovated to retain their historic values.  Lots of the homes have their own names or the name of who used to own it and when or are summer vacation rentals properties. We also wandered out onto the beach, a couple people were wandering like us another seated in their lawn chair watching the surf.  The beach here is like the ones we had seen all down the coast, miles of sand with a small amusement park along the boardwalk. We could see the actual Cape where the Delaware river meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Terns resting

The beach

We headed back to the boat, ladened with groceries,  I phoned for a ride from the marina shuttle just as it was starting to rain a bit, good timing.  Just up the street from the marina is a seafood restaurant that also has a shop that sells fresh seafood and bakery items, so we got a few large shrimp a lovely loaf of bread and a slice of tiramisu for dessert.
We hoped that the weather would hold so got prepped to head out early in the morning, including getting to bed early as neither of us slept a lot the night before.
The alarm went the next morning at 5:30 so we could check all our weather reports to see if it was a go to head to the C & D canal (Chesapeake & Delaware Canal) at Delaware City.  The short of it, no, there was no way we could safely get the 50 miles to the canal from Cape May before the weather disintegrated.  Good call on our part because it disintegrated earlier than expected, in fact by 10 am the wind had risen quite a bit and we likely would have had to come back. So, with the wind and tide against us, we booked ourselves back into the marina to wait for another weather window.  Currently, that looks like a few days as the winds are averaging mid 20's with gusts to 48 mph.  We're not going anywhere in that.
A couple arrived in their sailboat after leaving NYC yesterday at 9 am and arrived here about then today.  They said it was an awful ride, the waves kept building on them;  they were very glad to be here.  We helped the dockmaster to get them into the berth beside us, between two poles and a finger dock.  In the wind it wasn't easy, but they finally got settled and likely slept the day away. They are heading the same way as us, and have done this trip before so we'll be picking their brains abit about our next passage which is to the C & D Canal.

Today before the expected rain we decided to head back into town and check it out some more.

Off Cape May

 We walked the beach to the cape where the Delaware river meets the ocean to see what it looked like out there, bumpy....  Along the way we saw a worn out Monarch butterfly trying to find a calm spot to rest on a small sand bank, some dolphins skimming the surface, birds of all sorts wandering the beach like us; though they were looking for food.

We had seem quite a few dolphins during our passage to Cape May, they had been rounding up fish to eat.  The seagulls were trying to get in on the act too when they forced the little fish to the surface.  They were all too busy eating to cruise along beside us.

Sisters of St Joseph

The Battery

We walked to the point in the far distance

The walk along the beach is beautiful, we walked to the actual Cape then into that part of town to the bird estuary behind the sand dunes.  Hurricanes over the years have taken away a lot of the beach in areas.  The cement battery was used during WW2 to try and spot German U-boats before they hit American ships.  It used to have about 900 feet of sand in front of it, during one hurricane, it was left in the water.  The US Army Corp of Engineers rebuilt the area all around it and the building housing the Sisters of St Joseph as well as rehabilitating the sand dunes and the estuary behind them.


We got back to the downtown
and the Washington Mall, a lovely outdoor area near the marina when it started to rain, so we stopped for lunch in a pub before walking back along yet another sycamore tree lined street of neat old houses to our little boat.

The Washington Mall

The wind has really picked up tonight as I type, and I'm very glad for the big boxy stinkpot (large motor yacht) that is berthed beside us as its bulk is definitely cutting down a good portion of the wind.  This marina has some huge yachts and huge fishing boats berthed here right now, more came in today, likely because of this weather.


So please send us some good vibes to get rid of this excess weather, so we can be on our way again. We have been fortunate in our travels until we hit the ocean proper, the last few days has bigger everything with this system that is taking its sweet time to go by.

Til next time...

The view today to the Delaware Bay

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Manhattan and beyond...

Well, here it is September 24th, my mom's 96th birthday today.  Wish we were closer to give her a hug...

Not a great one of the constellations

Grand Central

A lot has happened since the last blog, about 45000 steps around Manhattan to start.  We did end up leaving Needfull Things at Croton-on-Hudson in Half Moon Bay Marina and took the train into Grand Central Station (about 40 minutes on the express train) into downtown Manhattan.  Oh my goodness, we got in there around 9:30 am and now I know where the saying comes from... 'it's like grand central station around here'... Its a busy place.  The building itself is beautiful, shiny clean marble everywhere, big columns, and granite staircases.  The ceiling is adorned with several constellations complete with the actual stars shining when you go through the station at night. Trains go from here to anywhere, even Toronto if we'd wanted to.

Union Square

Park Avenue

We came outside onto Park Ave - remembering Green Acres the TV show- kept singing the only part of the song I could remember - darling I love you but give me Park Avenue.  Its starts out posh as you head south away from the  train station but dwindles in that department as you go. Next came Union Square, a pretty little park that goes into the New York University area, Soho and Greenwich.

Freedom Tower

The Dove

A large university that's for sure, lots of young kids (ha listen to me- they're not that young) heading every where.  Walked on over to Broadway, but on the opposite end to where the big theatres are, as we found out.  Ended up at Ground zero, and the new Freedom tower or One World Trade Centre Observatory , that is impressive with its size at 1776 feet..  On the grounds in front of the tower is a lovely park with two sort of infinity pools that around their edges are the  names all those who had been killed in each tower.  A very impressive memorial for sure.  Also on the site is a building that I'm assuming is to represent a dove and peace and so on, but within it.... get this... a shopping centre.  As Al says only in America would they put a shopping centre in the middle of a disaster area.

One of the two pools

The battery

We carried on to The Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, a defensive area of years ago. Now ferries and cruises leave from there to go around the harbour, to the statue or Ellis Island.  The harbour is nuts with these boats all going somewhere fast or faster.
Next on our list was lunch in an area not far from there, where the streets were what I had expected them all to be, narrow with tall buildings on each side of the street, where not much sunshine can get in.  Found a little spot that was a market sort of where several different vendors offered various to go items, but with just one till to pay for it.
Once the tanks were filled, we carried on towards the Brooklyn bridge.  We walked half way across and back just to say we did.  The pedestrian walk/bike path goes over top of the vehicle lanes but down the middle so no having to dodge vehicles.

Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

The city had portions shut down because the UN general assembly was happening, didn't get an invite from Justin to go see his speech though.  The security around the city was very heightened because a fellow had decided to set off a bunch of bombs in various places around NY and Jersey City a couple days before we got there.  Helicopters were flying in squadrons over head, army, police and I'm sure lots of undercover people were everywhere.  At the time we thought that all the black SUVs were police etc. however, we have since found out that there are more SUV's working as taxi/Uber/tours than the yellow taxis of NYC.  So much for lowering emissions... Some definitely were government but as many as we were first thinking.

Little Italy

Next we walked along the edge of Chinatown and into Little Italy.  There is a festival of the Feast of San Gennaro happening for a week.  The streets are all blocked to cars and restaurants, vendors, carnival stuff was everywhere.  And we'd already had lunch.... darn.

Wood escalators in Macy's

Carried on to fifth avenue, and on to West 34th to see 'the miracle'...ha.  Macy's is still there, with all 9 floors.  We just had to check out each floor, briefly, and discovered that from the 2nd floor on the escalators were all wooden, clanking and churning their way up and down.  Al kept commenting that there weren't any mens clothes departments... he's kind of right... there wasn't a lot of that department.

Started to go up the Empire State building, but at $32 US a piece, quickly changed out minds.  Next up was Times Square - a very amazing collection of electronic bill boards all around us.  Had to stop and just try and take it all in.  The NY Police Department has a station right in the middle of the square.

Times Square

By this time, we're getting tired so headed back to Grand Central, grabbed a quick dinner and caught the train back to our wee little boat.  The dockmaster kindly picked us up at the train station and took us back to the marina.  Guess it was because he also wanted our money to pay for staying another day...

Tappan Zee Bridge construction

Next morning we continued down the Hudson in our boat, towards Manhattan to take in the northern area around Central Park.  The 79th Street Boat Basin leads right over to the park and the many museums and art galleries there.

View of the Empire State building

Might be plane that landed on the Hudson

We had to sail past the construction of the new Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson, oh my goodness, there is supposed to be about 100 barges across the river working on various sections of the new construction.  Very impressive.

 The George Washington bridge came next then the Boat Basin. The water was very churned up and confused when we got into the Basin, and once in we were getting rocked very badly. This would be a very uncomfortable night if we hadn't changed our mind and and moved over to Jersey City almost straight across from the Freedom Tower, into a marina that was off the main channel and was alot more calm, thankfully.

An Italian Expresso in Little Italy

Back in Little Italy

Manhattan skyline

Once settled we caught a ferry across and made our way back to Little Italy for supper - oh yum.  There were a few musicians wandering along the street playing music, people were walking up or down the streets, a great place to people watch for sure.  We ended up back to catch the ferry back to our little boat and bed.

Jersey City Sky line

Beside Central Park

Yup that's a big gun on the bow

Next day we hoped the 6 minute ferry back over to Manhattan, walked to the subway and for $3 each caught a ride to Central Park.  Its a beautiful place in the middle of the city for sure and I can see why it is the locals favorite place.

A slice of meteorite

ooooh dear....

We did the museum bit through the NY City Museum of Natural History.  An amazing place that we spent many hours in, and I know we didn't see everything.



Went looking for the 50 foot painting of John Lennon that was in Central Park for International Peace Day, however it had only been there for a few hours so we found out so missed it by a day, darn.






There's a lovely treed walkway down the centre of the bottom part of the park, tree lined with a couple vendors and buskers along the sides. Discovered there was a horse show happening, however, it was sold out.....darn again.

We watched plenty of horse and carriages, some decorated with pretty flowers and ribbons.

It was getting late by this time so we caught the subway back downtown, and after a couple stops for marine supplies and groceries we headed back over to our little boat and Jersey City. The time was getting on so we stopped into an lovely little bistro on the sidewalk and had a great dinner before ending the day - well almost ended the day.  Just as we were about to retire, a fireworks display erupted just across the channel beside us and were treated to an awesome show from our perfect view.  A great finale to our time in Manhattan.



Next morning, later than hoped, due to being put in line behind a $1500 fuel fill up of a mega yacht... we were on our way.  The bottom of the harbour was very rough and the waves confused with ferry, ship, cruise boat and who knows what else roared around us. We motored past the Lady on the rock beside Ellis Island (where most of the American immigrants came through) and took the famous picture, well a few of them.  There's something in my cameras len, hence the black blob to the left of the statue....After we got past the last bridge the wave confusion (coming from every direction) subsided and we settled into our journey.

Manasquan Inlet

The stick in the middle is our boat

Point Pleasant beach

Our next stop was Manasquan Inlet, New Jersey and the Hoffman marina around 5 pm.  The tidal current is quite strong in the channel and so our boat had to be  manhandled around the dock and into the slip in which we sit.  There are some huge fishing boats here as you can see in the picture.  We walked over to the Point Pleasant beach this afternoon with its lovely boardwalk that runs along beside a huge beach on the ocean shore.   There is a carnival type area that runs along part of the boardwalk too.  There were still some kids taking in the rides before they close it down for the winter.  I bet the place is very busy in the summer. As we sailed on down the Jersey coast we passed many towns with the same type of areas.  There are incredibly long stretches of sandy beaches all along the coast of New Jersey.

Til next time.....