AC in a day; NJ coast in a day

Fire control tower used during WWII to aim
the large guns at Lewes DE to guard the
Delaware Bay

The winds at Cape May continue to howl; every day we see south winds at 20-25 mph gusting to 30.  Remember in our USPS weather class, the discussion about a “Bermuda High”?  Well, this is it!  The seas offshore have been running 3-6’, certainly not for a fair-weather pleasure boater like us.  Between Cape May & Atlantic City, the inside Intracoastal Waterway has shoaled so badly that we cannot get through it, even at high tide.  So we must go outside at least up to AC, and, ergo, the need for good weather outside.

 

In Cape May, we found the ugly ducklings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beach house in Cape May

 

 

Along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City

We rode our bikes all around Cape May & wore ourselves out, so we rented a car to travel up to Atlantic City and act like a tourist.  We wanted to see some of the casinos (those which haven’t gone bankrupt yet) and walk the boardwalk.  Sue had been to Las Vegas (a.k.a. “Lost Wages”) and was impressed with the opulence of the casino lobbies.  Unfortunately, the casinos at AC were not as impressive.  Along the boardwalk, it was cold & windy, so there was not much activity.  We kept looking “Under the Boardwalk” – the rock ‘n roll song by the Drifters.  We did find it interesting looking for all the streets named in the board game Monopoly (the creator of Monopoly named the board spaces after the streets in AC).  But, after most of the day, we had seen enough.

But the next day, Sue found the Cape May Brewing Company, the local craft beer place, and we made our obligatory visit to sample as many different beers as humanly possible.

The new Miss America!!
The pageant has returned to Atlantic City

And then, when we were beginning to think it would never happen, a weather window opened up on Friday to travel outside!  Looking carefully at it, we were trying to decide just how far we could go at our “crawler” speed of 10 mph, because New Jersey has very few ocean inlets and marinas which can accommodate us.  It was a window of only one day, and then it turns crappy for another 4 days.  Many of our fellow AGLCA “Looper” boats were comparing notes on how far they could travel & where to pull in for the night & when they’d be able to continue cruising.  In the end, 3 boats departed Cape May at midnight (no, we weren’t one of them), and we departed at 0600 (my complaint again, do you realize how early you have to get up to depart at zero-dark-thirty?)

Inside Caesar's Casino in AC, a tribute
to Augustus Caesar

 

 

 

We followed a parade of boats out of Cape May Inlet into 2-3’ swells off the starboard quarter, and confused seas.  We rocked ‘n rolled for several hours & were thankful that we secured everything below deck.  But as the day wore on, the seas calmed down the farther north we went, to the point that we eventually had no wind & calm seas.  We were glad that we decided to go all the way to NY Harbor, traveling in one day what boaters normally travel in 4 days.

We passed the towns along the Jersey shore where we used to live in 1973, and saw Atlantic Highlands next to Sandy Hook, where Sue lived in 1965 when her father was commanding officer of a radar site to provide guidance for the anti-ballistic missiles to defend New York City against potential Russian ICBM attacks during the Cold War.  Ahhhh, the good ol’ days!

We finally made our marina at Great Kills Yacht Club on Staten Island after a looooooong 13 hours and 138 statute miles at sea.  There was a welcoming party of several other Loopers waiting to tie us up at the dock.  We all went to dinner that night, and Sue & I walked like drunken sailors.  We didn’t quit rocking until the next day.

So now we’ll visit the Big Apple for a couple days before heading up the Hudson River.