Cape May, NJ (return trip)

We had to leave our Brigantine anchorage by 7:30 on Thursday, September 19 to take advantage of the tides on the ICW in New Jersey.  We were heading to Cape May and had to continue on the inside passage which is very skinny (shallow) and is essentially unpassable for us at low tide.  The sky over the Atlantic City skyline was beautiful that early. 

It was an interesting passage in that we went through several New Jersey coastal towns with their waterfront houses tightly packed.  Some of them were built on top of their boat houses making for an interesting look from the water. 

The highly populated areas were interspersed with beautiful open marsh lands.  

The journey required hyper-vigilance on the part of the navigator due to the sinuous and very narrow track we had to follow most of the day.  Jonny found a special app that provided up-to-date information on the safest route to take that showed the areas of greatest shoaling.  If we had followed our usual routing tools we would have run aground.  Running aground would mean being stuck for hours until the tide turned. I was actually surprised that Jonny had me navigate for a couple of hours while he napped. I understand better now why it’s preferable to travel on the ocean side whenever possible.  Although the ride might be a little rougher due to ocean swells, it doesn’t require the vigilance that the inner route requires, especially in the southern part of the state.

As we left Wildwood we could finally start to relax as there were no more shallows and we had made it through before the tide changed.  We arrived in Cape May by 2 p.m. and heaved a sigh of relief as we anchored by the Coast Guard Station there.

We hung out for awhile before taking Archie in to shore.  Usually, when we are in Cape May we make it a point to go to the Lobster House’s excellent fish market. But we were headed to Delaware City the next day and would be seeing Stephanie and Ryan on the weekend so there was no need to stock up on fresh fish. Instead, we just dinghied to a closer site and gave Archie a short walk.  There is fish market there as well but it was already closed for the season.

We had some flounder in the freezer so we ate that for dinner and had a quiet night on anchor.  We’ll be doing the long slog up the Delaware Bay the next day to get to Delaware City and and the comforts of a marina for the weekend. 

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