Coney Island to Atlantic City, marina

When people say "curse like a sailor" it's not that the sailor is a particularly bad fellow. It's more that he had a long and miserable day and, *** **** ****** *****, he's just tired. I can relate.

We were up at 5 am for a 6:15 go time, the destination was Atlantic City. After one last weather/wave check that looked really ambitious to us. We decided we'd bag at Manasquan, which was the first inlet off the Atlantic. Then we'd casually bop our way down the Jersey ICW, and anchor somewhere. Since that inlet can spicy, we delayed our departure by 2 hours so it would be near slack tide when we got there. Highwind and One Eye Dog (OED) took off at 6:15 as planned.

They warned us the water was pretty bad across the mouth of the New York Harbor, but got better once off the Jersey shore. Armed with that, he headed out.

It was pretty bad. We had 4 footers on the beam, but in 11 second periods which is the only reason we though going was doable. It did get better once we got near the shore but it in no way was good. Or reasonable. I know the water is bad when I check my watch every 5 minutes wondering how much longer.

While the waters improved once off the ocean
the weather just got worse...

...and worse...

...and worse.

That part of the journey took 3.5 hours. Once we got in the inlet, which was perfectly easy, everything was smooth, and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

Right away we started looking for where to anchor. In chatting with OED we thought there might be a chance to get up the Delaware Bay tomorrow if we made it to AC tonight. We did some calculations and realized we could do that, then make a trip up the Delaware part of a long day tomorrow. So we called a marina and made reservations.

But as the day wore on (and on, and on) we realized the bay might not be so inviting after all -- all the weather apps have mixed predictions, which tends to mean "it's going to bite." And the Atlantic was still a mess, so we'd have to take the JICW to Cape May before getting onto the Delaware, and that track will take close to 8 hours alone.

Before we pulled into the marina (around 6:30 pm), we'd decided we'll just stay here a few days and see how the weather shakes out.

It's been a long 3 weeks, and today's been a long day. With Hurricane Helene coming at us, it doesn't appear we're done with this yet, either.

UPDATE: I forget to mention the highlight of the day. Very late, only a few miles from AC, in the very dim light we saw a sailboat. It's location made us assume he was in the channel, but as we neared he appeared anchored. Weird. Through binoculars I didn't see anchor line, but they clearly weren't moving, and (now we could see) they were not in the channel. We slowed way down and Russ got on the bow, asking them if they needed help. They did... they wanted us to wake them. So we put the throttle down, bucked up the water behind us in a huge wave, and went by them. They gave us a big thumbs up as they sailed northward and on their way. That definitely made us feel a little better about the day, being in the right time at the right place -- always happy to help someone.