Manasquan, NJ (return trip)

On Tuesday morning, September 17 I had my usual Spanish lesson so Jonny took Archie for his morning walk.  By 8:45 he pulled us from our mooring while I was still in class and headed for Manasquan, NJ, our destination for the day. Cruising through the East River is always interesting with its numerous ferries and other crafts zipping by.

The skies were overcast but it was warm and we had an uneventful trip down the East River going under the array of bridges that cross it.  I’ve skipped the usual NYC landmarks in this entry but they can be found in the blog for all nine years we’ve been taking this route.

My favorite is always the Brooklyn Bridge. I learned so much about its fascinating story when I read The Great Bridge by David McCullough several years ago.

We were amazed to see half a dozen open water swimmers in lower New York harbor with kayak and boat escorts!

Our calm cruise changed pretty dramatically once we left New York Harbor and got to Sandy Hook. Cruising down the New Jersey coast we had 3-5 foot waves with short periods between them the whole time. Poor Archie was absolutely glued to my side while I clung to the edge of the settee as we rode through those bouncy waters. Jonny had to be hyper-vigilant at the helm to adjust our tack to minimize the impact. We were very glad that we dissuaded Addie and Lange from visiting us for this stretch as it would have been awful for them. 

At one point Jonny went below into the cabin to get something and reported that it was an absolute mess from all the rocking and rolling. 

We finally arrived at the Manasquan Inlet and as soon as we got through that very challenging and rough inlet, everything calmed down considerably.  

When I went below I discovered that the saloon was strewn with anything that had been on a counter or shelf, one of the heavy chairs had slid across the room and the galley floor was covered in all the pots and pans that had fallen out when the oven door was thrown open.  I picked up as much as I could before going back up to the flybridge as Jonny hailed the bridge tender at our favorite Glimmer Glass anchorage.  We got in and set the anchor by 4:10.  What a day!

After a short while we dinghied in to shore where we beached the dinghy and walked into the pleasant town of Manasquan which was starting to get decked out for Halloween.

We headed up to Joe Leone’s Central Market to select some goodies from this Italian specialty shop. Our purchases included homemade mushroom ravioli and taralli biscuits.

Back at Zendo Jonny rewarded us with Boulevardier cocktails and we had the leftover cabbage and sausage casserole from the night before. We watched a couple of episodes of Suits before hitting the sack by 10. But not before checking out this beautiful full moon.

Next stop is a Brigantine anchorage near Atlantic City, this time on the ICW since the seas are expected to be even worse than they were today.