From one skyline to another

Since my last post Riggs and I have traveled from the Big Apple to the Big Casino, and are now anchored off of Atlantic City NJ, hunkering down for some upcoming nasty weather.

Monday's sprint through NYC was a trip indeed. We caught the tidal current in the East River just right, and were flushed from Throgs Neck to the south end of Manhatten in an hour or so, with a max 5 knots of current pushing us in the Hell's Gate area. Not much traffic (one tug pulling a barge against the current - I guess this gives them better control) until encountering a swarm of ferries near Wall Street. They zipped by on all sides as we puttered through. We swung close by Liberty Island to snap some pix of the copper lady, then down through Verrazano Narrows to end the day's cruise in Atlantic Highlands NJ.

I met with my Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim for supper. It was great to see them and catch up on family news. Thanks Ann & Jim!

Tuesday we made an outside run of about 45 miles in the North Atlantic. The wind was from the west, off the land, so we traveled as close to the beach as possible (about 1/2 mile), and the travel was OK. We pulled into Barnegat Inlet under optimum conditions (it can be bad there on an ebbing tide) and anchored nearby. I used the bigger CQR anchor since there was a strong NW wind that night. The anchor performed great.

Wednesday morning we looked out to the ocean and didn't like what we saw. The surf out there looked like a mountain range in the distance, so we traveled the 'inside route' on the NJ ICW to bring us here to Atlantic City. Its a much longer, slower route to travel, but quite interesting. Shallow water (typically 6 ft deep or so, Spray needs 4 ft) and narrow channels kept me on my toes, and the route meanders all over the place. We coule see the AC skyline the whole way (looked like the Emerald City) but we often weren't pointed towards it. Spray bumped the bottom once, and we paused to pull free a stuck sailboat (nice guy from Bucksport Maine of all places), and we dropped anchor in this great cove at about 3 pm. There's a good beach nearby which Riggs appreciates, and a great view of the casino buildings and their night light shows.

There's a gale warning up for tonight, and much wind predicted over the next 3 days, so we may be here awhile. I'm sorry about not posting any pictures with this entry, but apparently my small netbook computer, into which I could easily load pictures, has died. I'm now using my navigation computer, an old Dell laptop, for email and blogging. I've got to find that USB cable to connect the camera to this computer.

Except for the nasty weather, all is well here.