Friday, May 27, 2011

Underway on the New Jersey ICW

High winds from the south are going to continue through Monday so Tuesday will be our next chance to run from Manasquan, New Jersey to Great Kills on Staten Island, so we decided to dinghy to a grocery at the north end of Brigantine Anchorage to resupply our necessities (Judy's coffee creamer and a few other things). I dropped Judy at someone's PWC dock then rowed out into the water while she went to the supermarket. Then it was back to Sanderling (using the outboard), stow the new provisions, and raise the anchor to get on the way.

The tide was at about half height and rising, so we had extra water as we passed through some of the shallow spots on the way up the inland side of the Jersey coast. The wind was bowing from the south at 15-20 mph, so it helped push us along until we reached a stretch where we were heading east toward Little Egg Inlet and the wind-driven waves were on our starboard beam causing us to roll quite a bit in the choppy water.

We stopped for the day about 20 NM north of Atlantic City in an area called Long Beach and anchored in about 11 feet of water after crossing through 6 feet of water departing the ICW. There are homes all along the bay about 200 yards to the east of us. The wind is still blowing 15-20 from the south, but the anchor is holding well with 100 feet of chain to help weight it down. We have no protection from the southerly wind here, but tomorrow we plan to move to the Toms River where we'll have a land mass to the south to block the wind.

Since this is the Memorial Day weekend, it will be interesting to see how the weather will effect the anticipated hoards of weekend boaters.  

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