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.

It was about 10 days ago that we decided to stay here at Nichols Marina, rather than make the passage to Atlantic City. There were predictions for a major weather system to blow through over the following weekend which could also last several days. Staying here was a financial decision: if we were going to be held up by weather, we would save about $40 per day at this marina versus the ones in Atlantic City or Cape May. The only drawback here is there’s nothing close by. The road out of the park is over a mile, and the nearest “anything” is another 2 or 3 miles further. We do have lots of food delivery options here, though!

By Friday, gale watches were being issued. On Saturday, they turned to warnings. By noon Saturday, the winds were blowing at a steady 15-20, and by that evening, they were up to 25. We added another line to hold us to the dock, as they were predicting overnight winds at 35-40, gusting to 50. Luckily, the winds were blowing us away from the dock, or we would also have had huge waves pushing us into the dock. The boat was heeling sideways at the dock, and several times we could feel it vibrate and shake, as the winds caused our rigging to vibrate. Several times we turned on our instruments to try to catch the gusts – the highest we saw was 40, but we felt many that were higher. It’s amazing how in tune you are to wind and gusts while sitting in a boat. Neither of us slept that night as the rolling of the boat caused us to roll around in our beds! The waves out in the bay and ocean approached 12 feet: definitely not the kind of weather anyone wants to be in.

We finally did fall asleep, and when we woke up, the winds were still howling around 15-20, and small craft advisories were being raised all along the coast – until Tuesday! The winds weren’t supposed to subside until then, and the waves were between 5 and 9 feet most of the time. We weren’t going anywhere for several days. By Monday and Tuesday, the small craft advisories had been extended until Wednesday night, and then again until Thursday night. And, they were predicting severe storms on Friday (we are in the middle of one as we are writing this). Definitely not good travel weather. All if this was from the same set of low pressure systems that’s been wreaking havoc along the east coast with torrential downpours and severe flooding. We definitely made the right choice, even though there hasn’t been much to do here.

The marina is mostly a fishing marina. It does have a few sailboats, but we really haven’t seen anyone on them. It’s mostly people just going out fishing, or just going out for a quick boat ride. The people are all very friendly, but they all talk with that distinctive Italian New York accent. It makes us feel like we’re in a wierd episode of The Sopranos. All in all, though, it’s been a pleasant enough stay. We are now setting our sights on Sunday or Monday to make our escape and sail down the New Jersey coast. We see more unsettled weather next week, but we’re hoping to have so e small breaks to make the smaller jumps to Cape May, up the Delaware Bay, and over to the Chesapeake Bay. Stay Tuned!