GOING THE INSIDE ROUTE

OK, made it to Cape May, NJ today after 2 days of running the inside route of the ICW. The reason is that the winds were kind of high and the ocean gets steep.

After rising from a wonderful sleep in Tom's River, NJ we continued down the "inside Route". Normally we would be on the ocean because this route winds all through Barnegat Bay and the marshes. The water in some spots becomes "very skinny" and in fact we touched bottom twice. That was not necessarily because we were out of the channel. We were in but the shoaling was not noted in our manuals. Also some of the buoys were moved and hard to follow. We got off the ground OK and did not damage anything. The way went something like; we are in 20 feet of water and all of a sudden there is 1 foot under the keel.

It took us 6 hours and we traveled to a great anchorage in Atlantic City. There were about 10 sailboats and a couple of big power boats there with us. Mostly from Canada and this guy who snuggled in next to us from Denmark. Great looking boat.

From this anchorage we could see all the casinos and that evening Harrah's entertained us with a magnificent light show on the side of the hotel.Elle is getting really good with our camera and hope you enjoy her shots.

Today we decided to go the "inside route" also because the wind was whipping up and there were small craft warnings. Yes we are a small craft. We had never done this route and were told in previous trips that we should avoid it because it was so shallow. We decided to try it anyway because we had reservations in Cape May. So up at 6:00 am to start on the rising tide. that would help with this route. Took us 7 hours to go 45 miles because there were many bridges that had to open for us and one of them had some police activity on it and we had to wait for over a half hour before it opened. The wind piped up with gusts at 20 miles an hour and we both kept saying, "aren't we glad we went on the inside" Got to Cape May at 2:00PM filled both diesel tanks and moved into a nice snug slip. Plan on staying here for 3 nights since we have a few chores to do. ( laundry, deck washing, fresh food shopping, Blood test for me) and just enjoying this place.

See you here soon.