Thursday leaving Great Kills harbor heading for the North Atlantic Ocean

Friday, September 21, 2012

Thursday leaving Great Kills harbor heading for the North Atlantic Ocean

What an adventure, we braved the North Atlantic and made it to our destination unscathed. Ok VERY TIRED, chilled to the bone but elated to be tied to a dock and not bouncing around. The one picture I wish that I was posting is of the Dolphins that were at the inlet entrance to Cape May. A Pod of dolphins swam past the harbor, I squealed like a kid, Tom turned in time to see three break the water in a graceful curve, look at us and submerge again. I hope when we leave on Monday we will see them again.

BEGINNING -We woke early wanting an early start. The local birds used our boat for bombing practice. Tom washed the deck and I cleaned the glass on the dodger before we set out. The day started with a reasonable forecast, not perfect just reasonable, a NE wind at 10 to 15 kts becoming east and 3 to 4’ seas. As usual it was not very accurate. We left Great Kills Harbor at 7:30 and by 7:08AM we cleared the harbor beginning and hour of roll, pitch and wet spray. We endured – the buoy readings just outside of Lower Hudson River Bay said East Wind and 3’waves.

We cleared the harbor- Sandy Hook Point - and confronted the Atlantic Ocean. The waves were running east to west and we were running north to south so they picked us up rolled under us and set us down. Not perfect but tolerable. We set sail and soon we were scooting along and hooting and hollering heeled to and sailing.

We lost wind for about an hour, then got it back and maintained 4kts to 6.9 kts ( even kicked it up over 7 a few times) for the rest of the day and night. We were sailing just outside the 3mile line and arrived at Atlantic City just at 10pm. Cape May was only 30 additional miles, and by the time we got lined up with the harbor, found a marina and then tied off it would be past mid-night. We don’t like going into close quarters in the dark and the price per foot to dock was over 3 dollars. Tom and I made the decision to keep going – it was dark anyway. Neither of us slept very much, we passed sever tugs pulling barges, a mysterious green light where there should not have been one, scooted over a Horseshoe Crab sanctuary, and finally sunrise and Cape May. We will be here until Sunday or Monday – waiting for a weather window to go down the Delaware Bay. Fair Winds, warm weather, and following seas.