Atlantic City

With the continued demise of the laptop and my inability to figure out how to post pictures from my iPad, words will have to suffice. If you want pictures, check out the instagram thingie.

Sunday morning Ellen and I woke up at the perfectly civilized hour of 5am so we could be on our way out of our anchorage at Hampton, Virginia before sunrise. From the heart of the Norfolk/Hampton area to open water one must first cross the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and then cross the brunnel (that’s an Ellen-term for “bridge-tunnel”) to get to open ocean twenty miles away.

Within three miles of crossing the brunnel we hit a fog bank the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than a year. Fired up the radar and set sail for Cape May, NJ. It soon became clear that we were making fabulous time…sailing a beam reach at 7+ knots all day long…so we altered course a bit to make landfall at Atlantic City, NJ.

We were able to keep up that rapid pace until well after dark when the wind became a little lighter and clocked to come from directly behind the boat. So the second half of the trip became a motorsail. There is a lot of energy in ocean waves, fortunately for us the waves were the proverbial following seas so we got a significant boost for the entire trip.

Crossing the mouth of the Delaware Bay after midnight was a little nerve wracking because we were initially concerned about nasty seas where the ocean swell met the river current (ended up being a non-event…the seas were mild the entire trip) and because we were crossing two major shipping channels. Again, thanks to the radar, we were able to monitor the course of the few big commercial vessels out on the water last night. The closest any came to us was about three miles.

We also monitored the temperature of the ocean water. Watched it steadily drop from the low 70s to the downright frigid 56 here in Atlantic City. For the first time since early in 2017, Cupcake’s floorboards are cold underfoot. I suppose we need to get accustomed to the cold, we heard that the sea temperature at Block Island is 51. No more swimming.

Other than spotting dolphins at the very beginning and very end of the passage, we had a blissfully uneventful ride. Now we are resting up after the tiring night watches. Tomorrow we will check out the AC boardwalk and rest up for our last big offshore jump on Wednesday when we set out for Block Island.