Decision Time...again and again

I was lucky to receive an email back from Chris sunday afternoon while we were getting spotty cell service off the VA coast that let me know to contact him from my inReach via his email address, not his phone.  I had been sending messages to his phone and receiving no reply.

Early Sunday evening, I received an update from Chris that said “Squalls/T-storms to 30-40k likely Mon17 night” if we were to continue on to BI from our current location.

I also received an email response from Chris to my email to him stating that we could not get to BI by Tuesday am that said: “Then the solution is to shorten your trip, and just move up the Coast until conditions dictate you make Port.  This may mean making only day-hops on a couple days this week, or delaying trip.” Between this and weather forecasts we had seen for locations along the Jersey coast, it seemed unlikely that we would get a weather window to go from AC to BI any time soon.  In fact, it seemed like getting windows to make hops up the coast might be challenging.  I decided that we would head for Atlantic Highlands and alter our plans to go up the East River and through the Long Island Sound.

Peter and I had the first 3 hour shift, starting at 20:00.  At about 21:30 we were offshore SE of Ocean City, MD and began seeing lightning to the west.  We couldn’t tell where the storm was heading.  Listening to the VHF weather, we heard there was a strong thunderstorm heading through southern NJ that had apparently come through the Delaware Bay.  We felt reasonably confident that the lightning we saw was likely that storm and would pass well north of us.

As the wind shifted around to more SW, we were heading further offshore on our starboard tack, and I decided it was time to jibe over to port and head back towards the coast.  On port tack were not quite pointing towards AC, but with the continued expected shift towards the west, I figured that we would eventually be making AC.

As the wind shifted and dropped in velocity, we went from sailing to motor sailing to motoring with the main down.  We continued to hear about strong thunderstorm warnings in NJ on VHF and weather apps on our phones (when we got closer to the NJ coast).  By the time we were reaching AC, we had good enough cell service to decide that we could at least make it to Barnegat, NJ and I called ahead to make a slip reservation there.  Then off Barnegat, it seemed we could continue to Manasquan Inlet so made a reservation there and canceled the one in Barnegat.

As we pulled into Manasquan Inlet, we were watching a storm, but it ended up going south of us and we had plenty of time to go the fuel dock to top of the tank before tying up at our slip.  I had read in the cruising guide about the strong current there, but we were fortunate to be there near slack time.  Good thing because as we pulled away from the fuel dock and did a 180 to head to our slip, a fender went overboard.  So, a quick overboard drill was required to retrieve the fender.  Glad the current wasn’t running!

We had a t-head at Hoffman’s Marina which is outside the railroad bridge.  It was easy on and off.  We had a nice meal in outdoor seating at Waypoint 622, a short walk from the marina.  Marina guests receive a discount there.

Looking back out the inlet after entering.