Another nice day on tap with sunny skies. I looked at the weather and the swells were down to 2′ to 4′ with a 10 second period. I did not mention it yesterday but the period refers to the time from peak to peak of the swells. I had looked at doing the inside today but really did not want to do it because the number of shoaling spots was more than we saw yesterday and I did not think we could get to New York. The North portion of the New Jersey ICW ends at Manasquan Inlet and there is still 20 miles of Atlantic Ocean to New York City.
As we were exiting the marina there was a sport fisherman boat in front of us and he headed toward the Atlantic. We followed and once we turned north the water was not too bad. The swells for the most part to start were about 3′ to 4′ and they caused a rocking because they were on the beam. As we progressed the swells subsided to 2′ or less.
We were about 43 miles north of Atlantic City and we were hailed by the Coast Guard and they boarded us for a safety inspection. We had never been boarded by the Coast Guard before today. Two Coast Guard personnel came aboard, one to ask questions and the other to record everything on their inspection form. I had all our paperwork in order and we had all the equipment they wanted to see so everything went smoothly and it took about 20 minutes total and we were back on out way.
The New Jersey Coastal area is just house after house after house. The land is pretty narrow between the ICW and the Atlantic so there are minimal trees. I guess everybody wants there place on the water. We watched this for mile after mile. The total trip to NYC was about 105 miles on the Atlantic.
We did see some dolphins about 30 miles south of New York City. They did not play in the wake and it was only the dorsal fins that come up out of the water several times. It was nice to see them anyway.
New York entrance harbor is huge. It must be about 10 miles by 10 miles once you make the turn past Sandy Hook New Jersey. We did see several freighters and a few pleasure boats. The marked Channels cross in several directions. The charts showed the water was deep even outside the channel but there is a certain comfort of staying in the marked channels.
The Liberty Landing Marina was pretty busy. They had probably 6 “Around The World” racing sailboats in the harbor along with some support boats. We had called from about 10 miles out and after several minutes they said they had a slip for us. As we entered the harbor area we called on the radio and we drifted around for another 30 minutes or so while they finally found us a slip. We spent some time listening to the dockhands talk about where they were going to get lunch from even though it was already early afternoon. I had thoughts about trying to find another marina but the proximity to New York City and the location of the ferry to NCY is great not to mention the spectacular vies of Manhattan.
We were going to go to dinner at the Landings Restaurant but the rain started about 5:00 and lasted into the late evening. The forecast was for heavy rain and thunderstorms, but all we had was heavy rain. We ate aboard. Humbug, Carol Anne and Off Leash were all behind us some distance and will probably show up tomorrow. They all stayed in Cape May the day we left because they did not want to do the inside and Off Leash couldn’t because of bridge clearance. I called Humbug and found out they were in Atlantic City with Carol Anne and Off Leash was somewhere north of them at an anchorage.