The intercoastal waterway in New Jersey is a challenge! Especially at low tide. Just ask us...we went aground yesterday. Luckily, we were going slowly and the bottom was sandy, but we were stuck! Right in the middle of nowhere. Pushing and messing around did nothing to free us, so I called US Towing (I bought unlimited towing insurance for the year) and he arrived in 20 minutes and eventually pulled us off. He said it was not our fault, as the channel markers were not in the right places for that bend in the channel. The chart said 5 ft, but recent shoaling caused the depth to change, and we just happened to be a very low tide (the tides are six feet here). Not one boat came by us the entire time we waited. All day, only a few little fishing boats were on the waterway besides us. (In case you're interested, the amount I'd have paid for towing if I hadn't had insurance was 6 times the amount of my insurance cost for the entire year. It's a no-brainer!)
I must describe what the waterway is like here. Marshland. There are huge bodies of water that look like lakes, but they are very shallow and our navigating must be in narrow channels that have been dredged for boats. They post markers that you go between, spaced out from one to the next. Trouble is, sometimes it gets very shallow and between the markers it's not always deep enough. You need to follow the GPS chart plotter carefully, slowly.
The one photo shows what the marshland was abundant in - birds. Those snowy egrets were everywhere. Vast expanses of marshland and birds yesterday. Also, many many areas where homes have been built on pilings, right over the water. Some were old and had "character", others were new and stylish. This has been our view so far of NJ - bayou country! I expected to see alligators.
Yesterday was our first bridge opening! The photo shows the first one, but we had five before the day ended. You call ahead on the marine radio to the bridge operator and ask to pass under, and he says "okay". Then he lowers the barriers to stop the cars, and you imagine them swearing at you because they have to wait for just a single darned boat with people who are enjoying themselves at the many drivers' expense. It makes you feel pretty important that they have a person in there just for the purpose of making your boating life smooth. Four of the bridges were relatively small roads, but one was a major highway and by the time we passed under and the bridge was down again for the cars, the line up of traffic went on for miles! That's why at that spot they were building a permanent tall bridge to replace the drawbridge.
One of the five bridges, however, was dicey to get through. Only one half of it could open! We passed by with only a couple feet of clearance. And with the tide rishing through, you have to maintain control not to move to one side. Anyway, I obviously did make it, but Bruce and I were honestly scared I was not going to. Larger boats could not have used the intercoastal waterway here. Most boaters, we already knew, just go out into the ocean and bypass all the weaving around and worrying about going aground and hoping they will make it under the bridges. In fact, Bruce and I are planning to go out from Atlantic City here when the weather is okay, and do the same thing. That day may be Sunday, meaning we will have three days to explore Atlantic City.
But we are in a truly fortunate situation here! As we were about to pass under our sixth bridge (it already was raising when I called to say "no thank you, we are turning around"), a man yelled from his private dock that we could tie up there. We jumped at the chance because it was very windy, very cold, and getting dark. I even had my running lights on for the first time. He had seen us anchor just below here, and then raise the anchor when I realized it was too shallow, and so he knew we wanted to stop for the night. His own boat isn't on his dock yet for the season, so he offered it to us. What an incredibly nice and generous man!! People are so helpful. He proceeded over the next hour to tell us everything we could do here, we could stay here as long as we wanted, we could plug into his electrical, use his water hoses, have coffee inside his home, he'd drive us to the big casino hotels, and on and on. So, we are taking advantage of his hospitality and staying a few days. He admitted the waterways in NJ are lousy and also suggested we take the ocean route.
The day before yesterday was Cape May. What a pretty town! We cruised from our Maurice River anchorage across the lower Delaware Bay to a canal that cuts across into Cape May's harbor, avoiding having to go way around the southern tip of NJ to enter from the ocean. As has been common so far on our trip, we were the only boat in the canal. We anchored in cloudy, wet weather, and took the dinghy into a marina and walked around this vacation resort town for several hours.
The picture of me in front of an old Victorian home does not do justice to how incredible the homes are in Cape May. I would encourage you to Google Cape May so you can see some more examples of their Victorian homes, which they are famous for. I could have taken 150 photos if I'd wanted to (I took about 20 already!). Bruce and I took a break from our walking and bought a pound of fudge (four diff flavors). Yum!
It rained quite a bit that night, but we were cozy in our berths. The thing that was concerning was that the big fishing boats leaving the harbor caused wakes that really rocked and rolled us. We need to make sure everything on the boat is tidy and put away when we anchor out.
Well, now I'm off for a bike ride, and then Bruce and I will tour on the bikes. We saw the famous boardwalk last night on our walk into town, but today we will traverse it all like good tourists. See ya!
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