June 1 – 7, 2011
We waited an extra day for the wind to shift around and subside, but we left Cape May on June 1st at 5:45 a.m. with the wind on our nose. As the day went on, the winds got stronger with some gusts to 25 knots and waves 3-4 ft., which made the ride just as uncomfortable as we thought it would be. We took water over the bow and even up to the pilot house continuously, rode the tide up to Atlantic City and got there at 11:30. I was relieved that I didn’t have to go inside to make lunch while we were underway!!!
From about 9:00 a.m. on, I tried to call Gardners Basin Marina to make a reservation for a slip, but could not get anyone on the phone. When we arrived, we decided to just pull in to an empty slip & call it a day. After almost 6 hours of nothing going on, all the excitement happened in the 15 minutes prior to tying the lines to the dock.
As we approached the Absecon Inlet, the wind was howling & the tide was against us. To make matters worse, a sport fishing boat barreled past us and swamped us. Nasty New Jersey boaters! We pulled in to an empty slip and did I mention the wind was howling?! Roger & I had our headsets on, I was on the stern of the boat getting ready to jump on the dock, and I hear him say, “This slip is narrow. Are you sure I can get in here?”. Remember he is way up high in the pilot house and relying on me to direct him because his line of vision is very limited. I looked up both sides of the boat and said, “Push it in the slip. You’ll fit, but it’s tight enough that we won’t need the fenders!” After we tied our lines to the dock, we were able to squeeze the fenders between the boat and the dock.
The entire boat was encrusted in salt. We hosed it down and got most of the salt off it, and decided to explore Atlantic City. We caught a jitney (a small bus) and went to Trump Hotel & Casino, lost $5 in slots and decided to walk on the boardwalk. We stopped at a beach bar that had a great band and had a drink. The waitress uniforms were bikinis and Roger was in heaven. Our waitress Megan made Roger wish that he was 25 years old again!
We ended up spending an extra night in Atlantic City because of the winds again and finally left on Friday morning for Manasquan Inlet. It was a beautiful, clear day coming up the Jersey Shore on the Atlantic. Winds were still kicking up, but at least we didn’t have the big waves, since we stayed close to shore. When we got to Manasquan Inlet, we heard 2 separate calls of distress on the radio from boaters who had run aground in the inlet. Then we saw a boat that had obviously flipped over and sunk by the beach. We had heard that this place was not for the faint-of-heart.
We had made a reservation at Hoffman’s Marina because we were going to get fueled up there and thought we might as well just stay there, even though 2 people had told us that we should anchor out at a spot called Glimmer Glass anchorage. Our first hint that this was going to be a rough place was when we pulled up to the fuel dock and the wind kept pushing us away from the dock. I tried 4 times to throw the lines to the dockhands with no success. We finally had to pull away and go around. We fueled up and the dockmaster said that he would put one of his guys on our boat to help us dock. That should have been our 2nd hint that we shouldn’t stay there. Meanwhile, Roger is telling me under his breath, “Karen, I want you to practice throwing lines at the dock!” I felt like saying, “If you would have pulled us closer to the dock, I wouldn’t have to throw the lines so far and into the wind too.”
Well, we got into the slip -- bow first. It would have been impossible to back it in because the tide was coming up and the current was pretty swift. Neither one of us was comfortable with the set-up because when the tide was up, we were going to have a tough time getting off the boat from the bow. And we didn’t like the way the dockmaster tied off our lines to one of the pilings. He told us in his very convincing, self-assured voice, “we’ll help you get away from the dock in the morning.” By the time we had a cocktail and decompressed from the craziness, the tide was up and there was no way we were going to get off the boat. Luckily I had walked Louie when we first arrived. There went the plans to have dinner at a local restaurant; I had to cook onboard.
Then the current kicked up and we had never seen anything like this. It was rushing through the inlet and boats that had to go past us and through this narrow railroad bridge opening were flooring it so that they wouldn’t smash into the sides of the bridge. It was looking uglier by the minute and we knew we were going to have to get away early the next day to avoid a rising tide. Roger said, “I don’t’ like this at all. I’m going to wait for the ebb tide, after 9:30 tonight, put the dinghy in the water and untie the lines from the piling and retie them so we’ll be able to get away at first light tomorrow.” I suggested that we call out to a small boat with 2 young guys (who were the marina dockhands) and pay them $10 each to untie and retie our lines. They had a hard time holding on while the current was rushing through, but they got it done. We were retied the way that we know is best and we both learned our lesson, to trust our instincts, because we know our boat best.
The next morning at 5:00 a.m., I walked Louie (yes, it was low tide & I was able to get off the boat) and I went to the marina office to ask for help with our dock lines. A guy gave us a hand and the current just pushed us out of the slip—it was very strange, but we got away by 5:20 a.m. We weren’t even out of the inlet and the local fishing boats came up behind us and ran right by us -- on both sides. Unbelievable!
We had a great ride up to New York City. The winds were calmer and the seas were only 1-2 feet. It was great! We saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Manhattan skyline as we approached New York Harbor. We anchored at Liberty Landing State Park, behind the Statue and for a good part of the afternoon, we were the only boat in the anchorage. Our friends that we had traveled with last year, Susan & Danny Godin, from Potest Fieri, got to the anchorage just in time for Happy Hour. We had been planning to catch up to each other this year and we did.
The next morning, we went to Liberty Landing Marina, in Jersey City, NJ. It’s a new and beautiful marina with easy access to Manhattan by ferry boat. Just as we were docking, my brother Bill and niece Jenna were arriving on the ferry. Bill had come to NY for the weekend and Jenna lives in Astoria (Brooklyn) and is trying to establish her show career. She is a magnificent singer and dancer and has performed in many different musicals. It was great to be with my family and friends too! We all went to Ellis Island and were touched by how brave our ancestors must have been to leave their homeland and come to such a foreign place. Then we went to Carmine’s Italian restaurant for a late Sunday lunch and walked around Manhattan for a while.
The next day, Susan & I took the ferry to the city and decided to do a bus tour. We had such a great time, and believe it or not, Susan was showing me around New York City. I’m the native from New York State, but I had only been to the city a few times and each time, very briefly. We had coffee at Starbuck’s at Trump Tower and lunch at Rockefeller Plaza. We went to Tiffany’s and I showed some major restraint by not buying anything!! We went in and out of the stores on Fifth Avenue and we saw Hoda from NBC News’ Today Show. We had left at 9:30 that morning and got back to the boats at 6:00. It didn’t seem like the guys were even wondering when we’d ever get back.
On Tuesday, we spent one more day in the city and I bought a purse and new bedding for our bed on the boat. Later that afternoon, an old friend of ours from our Goulds Pumps’ days, Alex Foulds, came to visit us. He introduced us to his girlfriend Marina, and she was nice enough to drive Susan and me to the grocery store so that we could restock. We had a wonderful Japanese dinner with Alex & Marina on our last night in the Big Apple.
