7/30/18 – 8/4/18: Even before we started sailing to Barnegat, we knew another multi-day weather system was only days away. We could make it to Atlantic City or Cape May before the next system hit, but we would be stuck there until the system passed. We contemplated bypassing Atlantic City altogether and just hopping down to Cape May, but since we hadn’t been to either place, we opted to stop at Atlantic City first.
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7/29/18: After a week of gale warnings, small craft advisories, and severe thunderstorms, we finally got a break in the weather. It was only a couple days, but we decided to take advantage of it. We had to decide where our next stop would be, and our options were limited. New Jersey is not a great place for sailboats, especially deeper draft vessels like ours, which limited us even further. Our ultimate destination for this leg of the journey was Cape May, which would put New Jersey behind us, and the Delaware Bay ahead of us. But getting there was going to be dicey, as our weather window was small, and wasn’t the best to begin with.
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7/27/18: It’s been a week since we lasted posted anything. Our decision to wait out some bad weather turned out to be a good one, but what a wait it’s been! We are at the same marina on Staten Island, trapped by a series of low pressure systems that’s wreaked havoc all along the east coast. Hopefully, our luck will change soon.
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7/12/18 – 7/28/18: We were one step away from heading offshore down the coast of New Jersey. There aren’t many places (for our boat) to “duck in” along that coast if the weather turned nasty, so we needed a place to wait for a good 2-3 day weather window. Our choices were the Sandy Hook, NJ area, or the south side of Staten Island. Most of the marinas in the area were too shallow for our draft,so our options were limited. We chose Nichols Great Kills Park Marina on Staten Island as it had the depth, was only an hour to the New Jersey coast, and was also the least expensive at only $2 per foot. Little did we know we would spend a little more time there than we first anticipated.
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7/11/18: We left Haverstraw feeling a little bit anxious. Today was the day we would sail into New York City and we’d been told horror stories from many people about the intense boat traffic and the huge wakes coming at you from all directions. Plus, New York City is just plain BIG, which created a little apprehension on its own. The marina we chose was right across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan and was quite costly – over $200 per night for our length of boat. Needless to say, we decided to spend only one night there. We left Haverstraw early in the morning, hoping to arrive with enough daylight left to visit something during our short stay.
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7/10/18: We left Poughkeepsie early in the morning, saddened to see another set of friends go by, knowing that we may never see them again. It seemed like an ending to a story that started last fall, and now the final chapter has been written. But we know that our story is still being written, so we said our goodbyes, turned our bow south, and sailed onward.
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7/9/18: We woke Monday morning with mixed feelings about leaving Kingston. We had some sadness because we really enjoyed our stay at Rondout Yacht Basin. And Kingston grew on us with each passing day – we were sad to leave it behind. We were anxious at the unknowns ahead: tides, currents, the ocean, and unknown marinas and places. But we were happy and excited, too. Happy because we were finally on our way after weeks of delay, and excited for the upcoming experiences we knew were coming our way.
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7/3/18: Wow! It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since our last post! Geographically, nothing has changed: we are still in Kingston, sitting in the same marina, berthed in the same slip. We’ve had a busy month working on various projects and visiting with friends, marina staff, and dock-neighbors. But our time here is quickly wrapping up – we plan to leave early next week to continue our adventure down the east coast to New Bern, NC.
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