We are now heading north form Cape May on the infamous New Jersey inter-coastal waterway. The NJICW is notable because it is not very deep and not well maintained. The unofficial depth is 4 feet at low tide and Catan’s draft is 3 feet 9 inches. Our first local advice was to not attempt the NJICW unless you are on a rising/high tide. You can see where this is going. Catan has spent the last two days “wiggling” her way north on the NJICW (mid to high tides), often dredging the bottom! Fortunately, the channel bottom is a soft muddy material. We had three significant “oh crap!” moments. To make matters worse we had the New Jersey State Police boat pull us over in the middle of all this angst! They simply wanted to warn us of shallow waters ahead. At one point we thought of turning around but then we called the Boat US (CAA/AAA on the water). They were happy to provide information regarding specific areas of concern ahead and we were able to avoid a few more incidents running aground.
Days like these are not fun. Imagine wondering if at any moment you are going to get stuck on a sand bar! We arrived at Ventnor City anchorage by 1630hrs only to try 6 times to set our hook with no luck. There was a small run-down boat marina in this anchorage basin which had not even opened for the season and it had a sad looking floating dock that could accommodate Catan, in a pinch. We were quite weary now, so with a hope and a prayer we tied up to this rickety dock and went looking for permission to stay there for the night (of course the weather forecast was for wind, rain and thunder).
From a small bungalow overlooking the marina, an elderly couple emerged. Bill and Ruth owned the marina (now run by their son) came out to welcomingly confirm we could stay the night, at no charge! They could not have been nicer and more hospitable. Eric took them a bottle of wine as a token of our appreciation and ended up shooting the breeze with Bill for almost an hour. A wonderful example of the best of humanity and generosity at the end of a long, tiresome day.
Today, we had a short run up to Atlantic City, NJ. We are at a municipal marina relaxing and waiting for good weather to run outside on the Atlantic, bypassing this NJICW nonsense and get to New York City. Neither of us has been to Atlantic City and we enjoyed a 2 mile walk down their larger than life boardwalk. It was sunny and warm with lots of people watching to entertain us. We will have a full day off to relax tomorrow and will visit another recently revived retail section of Atlantic City. The forecast for our NYC run has consistently indicated that Thursday will be “good to go” for our 80 mile run north. We certainly hope that the forecast holds because we do not want to mess with NJICW any more. Time will tell!
