Both of us were well rested, and up and dressed by 6:30 in the morning. Most of you know that we love to sleep in and this early rising just isn't our routine. The morning sky was brightening so we took a peak out to see if anyone else was crazy and awake. Lo' and behold we noticed a boat just at the entrance to the Absecon Inlet. It looked like Horizon IV being assisted by another boat. Well, our ominous warning about the channel came to haunt our friends. They had left before sunlight in anticipation to beat the weather and get a 'head start' and unfortunately missed the last marker, YIKES! Fortunately they had a good samaritan boater that helped them off their grounding and then rescue their dinghy. By the time we raised our anchor and headed out to the entrance of the Inlet, our friends were already underway. So, we headed out into an ocean with waves and the promise of deteriorating weather. As a consensus both boats turned back into the Inlet and decided to try the inside route. This is where we should have just all gone back to bed... like our friends on another boat called Irish Rover. They saw us turn back in from the ocean and decided to just go back to their slip.
The day deteriorated from then on, our friends on Horizon IV,in a narrow canal discovered they had lost their starboard steerage. They had to quickly find a marina that would short haul their boat, with the way the ICW winds there was no way they could have continued. We said good bye to them and headed onward. The winds piped up and with all the bridge delays and no wake zones, we lost the advantage of the tide. It was a new moon and low tide was 22 inches lower than normal. On the intracoastal that is more then substantial because the intracoastal is notorious for being shallow in normal conditions. We heard several boats ahead and behind warning other boats of treacherous spots and then there was the nonstop Towboat US calls for grounded vessels. The Summer Wind soon joined calling towboat US, one minute we were in 20 feet ,, then all of a sudden we were aground, the wind gave us an extra push for extra measure. It took Towboat over 40 minutes to get us ungrounded. As we were stuck we received a call from our friends. Their boat was fixed and they were back on the water. Our boat had gone aground 2 more times but we were able to get her off ourselves. Another day we found ourselves racing the sunset at a very stressful snails pace, we finally made it to the marina shortly around 6:30 pm. Our friends on Horizon IV didn't fair much better, they too went aground and they were verbally guided into Utsch's marina by towboat US after 8:30,, what a very long day!! When Tim and Joanne came to their slip, we hugged and greeted them ,, then all four of us went to dinner at the "Lucky Bones".The NJICW (New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway) is not our favorite and I hope to never have to do the NJICW ever again!!!
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| Dinner at the "Lucky Bones" with Tim and Joanne |
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| Joanne & Tim on Horizon IV |
Our plan was to spend 2 nights in Cape May. Tim and Joanne changed their plans and decided to head out because the weather prediction didn't fair well for the next few days. They were unfortunately on a timing schedule so we sadly said our good byes. Well 2 nights turned into 4 nights. The winds were coming out of the north with gusts over 25 knots creating 4-5 foot seas. Oh well, so we did quite a bit of walking around Cape May. Its one of our favorite spots with great beaches, cute boutiques, wonderful ice cream and great restaurants. On Friday there were a few souls that tried to leave but shortly after an hour we saw their return with very unhappy captains and tales of high seas.
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| Cape May, B & B |
