Sandy Hook, NJ

Yesterday was a very long, long, adventurous day for us! We left Cape May, NJ at about 8 AM and arrived off the channel of Atlantic City, NJ at about 2 PM. We decided it was too early to stop yet so we continued on to Barneget Bay, NJ. We had never been to this port and had read and been told it was not easy to navigate. Well they were all true. After going hard a ground and driving off with the throttle full out a kind soul directed us into the anchorage over the VHF radio. We settled in, had dinner and went to bed around 10 PM. The wind picked up about 1 AM even though the weather report was for 5 knot winds, we clocked about 28 knots at 2 AM when we woke to a bump of our boat into the boat behind us. Our anchor decided to drag and cause us to play bed buddies with the boat behind us. It took 4 of us to get our boat off the bow of their boat. We had drifted over their anchor and we straddled over their chain between our keel and our rudder. Being afraid of fouling our prop we had to do it by hand. Once we were free we tied to a mooring ball that was out in the anchorage. To compound all this did I mention not only was it dark but very foggy and I had never been the one to drive up to a ball. The wind kept driving my bow away so Larry could not grasp the line. I finally after two tries backed up to it, Larry said he never saw anyone do it quite like that. I guess there has to be a first time for everything. Larry was so cold and smelled like the slime on the ball he took another shower. Even though we were secure on the mooring ball, we could not fall back asleep. What a night!

The picture is of three of the boats we left with this morning in the fog about 6:30AM. We stayed together because the two boats in the middle of the front boat and us did not have radar. The front boat and along with us kept a look out for in coming boats. Larry said he was very glad to have radar something we didn't have when we started our journey on our Hunter 30. The two boats expressed their gratitude as we all went different directions after the fog lifted around 10 AM.

After having very little sleep last night and the weather predicted much the same as we had last night we decided to get a mooring ball at the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club. We stayed here on the way down, there isn't much here but it is secure.

Tomorrow we will leave weather permitting and travel up to Nyack, NY. Yeah!