Day 266: Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Port to Port: Sunset Lake to Ventnor City, New Jersey
Underway: 7:04 am Motor Off: 5:20 pm Miles Traveled: 42/38 Stayed At: Anchor
Mile 110 to Mile 72: Today was a rare day. We have been incredibly lucky this whole trip (for lots of reasons) – up until today we had had only two other days where we had to wear our foul weather gear while traveling – both times on the Mississippi. Well, today was number three. The radar looked hopeful this morning. The green and yellow blobs looked like they would slide by us to the north. They decided to grow in our direction instead. Late morning, it started sprinkling intermittently, then more often, then it started really raining steady. We decided to pull over for a little while to wait for the clouds to pass – visibility was getting a little challenging. At least the blustery weather kept the boat traffic to a minimum – only a handful of fishing boats and one other cruiser were out enjoying the day. This was one less source of stress on an already challenging day.
The biggest challenge today was finding deep water. The depth finder spent a lot of time beeping everytime the water was less than 5 feet deep. The New Jersey Intracoastal has been crappy for years – there is never any money to dredge the channel to a consistent depth and since it is mainly a recreational channel, it is a very low priority for the federal government. On top of that, Hurricane Sandy dumped huge amounts of wreckage and silt from the storm surge into the channel. The place we anchored last night was only 3 feet deep at low tide – it was marked at 8 feet on the chart. The whole bay had been silted in.
Although we found most of the channel today navigable, there were a number of places where the water was only 5 feet deep (or less) or it was difficult to find the actual deeper channel. The shoals continuously shift and make marking them a full time job. We never hit bottom but there were a few times the depth finder was reading 3 feet deep before I turned the right way into a little deeper water. Luckily, the bottom is very soft mud so if you don’t hit going full speed you should be able to back up and try to find a better route or wait until the tide is rising.
By the time we got anchored in a very well protected cove, we were hungry, tired and cold. But we are 40+ miles closer to New York City and our reunion with the kids. It is all worth it.
