Cape May

Saturday June 29, 2013
38 58.350 N
74 50.676 W

We were up at 5:30 AM and under way at 6:00 AM. The dock master turned up to help us turn the boat around and handle lines - what a good guy - I had been thinking all bloody night about turning a 49' boat in a 70' wide channel with a strong current. We did it with a bow line on the dock and it was a breeze.

Some interesting old lighthouses

We appeared to hit the Delaware at slack and enjoyed the ride as the tide and current did its job.At one point we hit 10.6 kts which is light speed for us. Overall we covered the 49 NM to the Cape May entrance in just 6 hours. The wind picked up after lunch.

Cape May is like Rosebud for New Jersey folk. (Sedona for Phoenix people? South Beach for college kids?) We had arrived on a weekend in the summer. The weather was not great but the water was crawling with just about anything that floated. In general it is probably fair to say that NJ people (like new Yorkers) have little interest in the the COLREGS. (Road rules for the water)

Drifting in the channel

But first we needed to get fuel so we bought 537 gallons at "Miss Chris" marina. Then we headed thru Cape May to what looked like a decent anchorage about 5 miles up the ICW. As mentioned previously, Cape May is a summer "vacation place". There seem to be a million boats with no-one on the same page as us. Tide Hiker has a pretty serious  air horn, and I used it several times to assert our right of way.  If the fish bight best in the channel, then that's where you fish.

We made it to the anchorage. I would describe it as an "urban anchorage". As we arrived we probably disturbed a dozen wave-runners, 1/2 dozen power boats pulling tubers and at least one pirate boat. We could here the music drifting over the water from the waterfront bars and restaurants. Took us two tries to get the anchor to stick (I hope it did). The weather forecast for the next 4 days is bad - too bad for the Atlantic for sure - so this may be our home for a while so I need to learn to like it.

Mason has learned to smile