9/15/2014 - 9/19/2014, NJ Coast, Little Egg Inlet, Cape May Adventures 1-5

9/15/14, Monday

We continued down the coast of NJ on a beautiful calm day. We were able to sail a little, but the wind, from behind, didn’t add much. So we motor sailed. One more time, Chuck adjusted the engine belt, while we continued sailing along.

For our night stay, we entered Little Egg Inlet. Earlier, as we looked for the entrance buoys on the chart, we had noticed a note: “Navigational aids not shown due to continually shifting sand shoals.” We got lost and grounded many times. We were looking for an anchorage between Seven Island and Fish Island, but it was no longer a clear path, and one or both of the islands might have been gone, as a result of the severe storms of the past few years. It was hard to tell what was what without a working chart plotter, and no one was around to ask except for 2 kayakers, who were too far away. It was getting dark, so finally we just “Columbus’d” a protected spot on the side of a little used channel, and spent the night. After we anchored, we realized that we had a very distant and colorful view of Atlantic City.

Atlantic City, in the distance

9/16/14, Tuesday

We woke up to a grey and drizzly morning in our beautiful, secluded non-anchorage, the first of many times in which we felt that we had almost the whole world to ourselves. This is an unspoiled and unsigned place. (Did I mention no navigational aids shown on the chart?) We were the only anchored boat, and the only traffic we saw was 3 small fishing boats going out and coming back in. We were nestled between one island with an abandoned house and a water tower, and another shore with marshes, a house with a cupola, and some bird nest stands. We knew it would be light rain today and decided to have a layover day in this gorgeous little spot, where we are the only people in the world, except for 3 small powerboats, 2 kayakers, and Atlantic City, far in the distance.

 Island with abandoned house and water tank

Island with marshes, bird stand, and house with cupola

I worked on the “inventory” project. It’s a fun one, trying to list every item in the boat and where it is.  I started with the food items, so I could try to make good use of everything, and try to reduce the volume of stuff we are carrying. We have food items in our tiny (dorm sized) fridge and freezer, on the shelves, in the cabinets, in the spare state room (the “garage”), in the closets and under floorboards. So far we’ve been able to avoid carrying things on the outside of the boat.

Eventually the rain subsided and the day cleared, and everything was wonderful at Little Egg Inlet. Until the horseflies moved in, that is. I found my one flyswatter and became the champion fly killer.

9/17/14, Wednesday

We got up and left early, 6:35 AM. (really? me?), heading for Cape May, NJ. Exiting Little Egg Inlet was tricky but successful, across breakers and rollers. We sailed down the NJ coast, (“Keeping the US on the right”, as instructed) past Atlantic City and Wildwood (looks like a permanent carnival).

 Atlantic City

Wildwood, NJ – looks like fun!

On the way, we were still battling the horseflies, and I broke my only flyswatter. It cracked and the swatting pad dropped into the sea, leaving me with just the handle!

We had additional problems with the engine belt, which slipped at least 3 more times during this trip. Each time, Chuck went down to adjust it while the boat continued to sail on autopilot, and I kept a lookout for boats or any other obstacles.

At about 2:30 PM, we reached Cape May, and navigated to the far end of the channel in search of diesel fuel. We successfully got the 3 things we needed 1. Diesel fuel, 2. Water, 3. Intelligence – this time it was info on a good local restaurant.

As we went back out into the harbor, we passed a worker who was scraping paint on the waterline of a huge workboat, who yelled “Take me with you!”

We anchored just east of the Coast Guard docks, with their enormous ships. We swam, showered, and dressed up to go out to dinner at “Lucky Bones,” which we thoroughly enjoyed. We had a great conversation with the couple at the table next to ours, who were locals, from one of the “Fishing Families.” The wife was so excited about our trip and really wanted to travel by boat like we are doing, but the husband, a commercial fisherman for whom the boat was his “office,” said he really didn’t like boats at all and was looking forward to traveling inland when he retired!

Summer Wind at Anchor in Cape May, NJ

9/18/14, Thursday

We awoke to "Reveille" and the “Star Spangled Banner,” care of the Coast Guard at 8 AM, which was actually really nice. And then the adventures began.

Cape May Adventure 1, “Secure Facility”: We decided to take a dinghy ride in search of a grocery store. Chuck had done an internet search and thought he found a place where we could provision.  We saw flags and pilings, and wove our dinghy between the pilings before beaching it and climbing out on to the rocky shore. We got up to the back parking lot and headed for the door, with our reusable grocery bags. As we did, a man approached us and told us “This is a secure facility!  I’ve already called the police.” What? We were only looking for a grocery store and this looks like one. We didn’t see any signs. “This is a secure facility!” (Well, no it really isn’t secure. Two people, over 50, just walked right in! And we’re not exactly “Special Ops”, we have no military training whatsoever, unless you count a couple of bank accounts with USAA and the fact that we were carrying MRE’s, leftover from Hurricane Sandy, on board.)  “OK, we’re leaving.” It was a Bumble Bee Tuna Processing Plant. (We still didn’t see any signs on the way out).

Secure Facility

Cape May Adventure 2 - Groceries: We dinghied to the Canyon Club, a very nice marina on the other side of the channel, to scope out where to get the engine belts that Chuck had ordered by phone. We were planning to pick them up first thing the next morning and leave immediately after that. Chuck found the parts department and we gathered more critical intel – where the grocery store really is. About 2 miles from the harbor. 

We went back and gathered our foldable crates and foldable rolling carts. We dinghied to the beach spot that we had used to access the restaurant, climbed up the steep sand hill once again, and walked to the store, where we stocked up. And then walked 2 miles back, with full carts and backpacks. We really did enjoy the walk, after a week on the boat.

 Foldable crate and rolling cart

  Foldable crate and rolling cart

 Foldable crate and rolling cart, in use

9/19/14, Friday

Cape May Adventure 3, Boarding Report: We got up early, dressed in foul weather gear for the rough dinghy trip across the harbor, and set off for the parts. We got what we needed, plus a few extra hose clamps, and were on our way again. It was worse going back. With the wind in our faces and the waves splashing into the dingy, we could barely see. We approached the anchorage, looking for our boat. We didn’t see it.

We are scuba divers, and divers have a sign language of underwater essentials, such as “I’m out of air!!” and almost as critical, “Where’s the boat?”

 Question: Where…

…is the boat?

We both said in unison “WHERE’S THE BOAT???” and scanned the anchorage. We turned 90 degrees to our right, and there, right next to the 100+ foot Coast Guard cutter, was comparatively tiny Summer Wind, tied to the Coast Guard dock!

We drove the dinghy over, got out, and met the Coast Guardsmen. “Thank you for saving our boat!!” we said, and they said, “Well, we didn’t really do anything. The boat started drifting. It was headed for those rocks, and then it just turned, came this way and DOCKED ITSELF on our dock." 

"So we grabbed those lines you had out on deck and tied it up.” Lots of official paper changed hands. We had to show our CG Documentation. They filled out, and we signed, a boarding report, since they had boarded our boat.

Tied up at the Coast Guard dock – view looking behind

 Bow (ours) to forecastle (theirs)  – view looking forward

While still tied to their dock, we pulled our anchor up with our windlass (anchor winch) and in the excitement didn’t give much thought to how easily it came up, when it really should have grabbed the bottom, somewhere.

It was blowing 29 knots, and the wind was pinning Summer Wind to their dock. They offered to tow us in their 40 ft inflatable boat off the dock, and back to the anchorage or anywhere else. We opted to go back out to the anchorage.

 Preparing to Tow with the 40 footer

Preparing to Tow

When we got back I realized that they had very quickly identified us and tried to call us. We didn't get the call because we had left our phones in the boat for the “short” and wet dinghy trip for the engine belts. I plan to be a lot more generous in the future when I get those annual contribution requests from the Coast Guard. They were really super!

We re-anchored in the anchorage, close to where we had been previously. Another boat alerted us that we were dragging. We re-anchored, we dragged again. We were making the nearby boats very nervous, so we tried to re-anchor in a different place, and dragged again. 

By this time it was mid-afternoon. We called the marina where we had gotten diesel fuel two days earlier to see if they had a slip. They could accommodate us for this night only. Bad weather was expected and they had other people coming in. We were happy to take the space they had, which was on the gas dock, with several other transient boats.

Cape May Adventure 4 – South Jersey Marina: SJM is a great marina. It is not inexpensive. However, after all we had been through, it was a most welcome luxury experience.

South Jersey Marina

First, there were the spa-like showers, quite possibly the best marina showers anywhere.

Then there was the laundry. Since it was there, we took the opportunity to do laundry. Lots of it. I haven’t been to a laundromat since college. They’ve upgraded! This one didn’t use coins, it used a credit card. And you could even get it to alert you by text message when your wash was done.

The marina also has other amenities, which we didn’t have enough time to try. They would drive us to the grocery store, which was still 2 miles away. They have a restaurant. They have a marine store, as well as a “shopping” store, with clothing and other fun things.

Then there were the other cruisers. This was our first opportunity to meet other cruisers, which we really enjoyed. Dave and Toni on Celestial Melody, from NC, are also headed for the Bahamas, Dawn and Paul, on BuBu, newly retired, and also from CT, are bound for FL, two trawlers from Michigan, with Janet & Gary and their friends, are also headed south, and Vic and Fred, the professional crew of the yacht "Bernadette" are on a schedule, doing a delivery.

Summer Wind is on the right. By nightfall the dock was full.

Cape May Adventure 5 – Switching to Bruce: Chuck was wondering why the anchor, which was fine for so long, was no longer holding. He decided to switch out our Delta anchor for the back-up anchor, which is a Bruce. We had never used the Bruce. In New England, the Delta works really well. We were a little apprehensive about trying the odd (to us) looking Bruce, but after talking with some of the other cruisers, he learned that they are very popular in the muddier bottom of this part of the country. Only after taking off the Delta did he realize that it had broken. The pin on the bottom that holds the two flukes together was no longer attached on one side. We think the damage originated with the slam into the pier in the East River of NYC, when the fluke bent, and then the strong winds of Cape May pulling on the boat in the anchorage completed the break.

The weather was still not great the next morning, but since we couldn’t stay at the marina, we headed south, for Delaware. More about that in another post!

Sandy & Chuck
on s/v Summer Wind