THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2012
I went to bed at 8:30 last night. I was so tired from holding onto to
anything within reach to keep from getting thrown into the floor AND looking
for boats in the fog. There’s that word again. When we left the anchorage at
6:15 to get the current right in Point Pleasant Canal. Just before the canal, the waterway was
narrow with nice houses on either side.
I took a picture of swans gliding along beside us.
Point Pleasant Canal was finished late
1925 to connect the Manasquan Inlet and River to Bay Head Harbor at the
northern end of Barnegat Bay where we had just anchored the night before. Because of the almost 4-knot current
flowing through the canal on the ebb and flood tides, it is wise to time your
approximately 1.9 mile journey through the canal accordingly. In other words, catch the current. We had a wicked current helping us
along. We were idling along going
7.7 mph through the whirlpools in the narrow canal. There are escape ladders
along both sides in case anyone fell into the swirling water because they
couldn’t climb the steel sides.
Sorry about the awful picture.
There was no time for more than one shot.
About 30 minutes after we left it started
to sprinkle and the fog surrounded us.
We can’t seem to get away from it.
It cleared up for a little while as we made our way into the Atlantic
through Manasquan Inlet.
Then
heavy rain and dense fog caught us.
At first the waves weren’t very bad. They were 3-4 foot swells that caught us on the beam
(side). When the seas are on the
side, it makes the boat roll from side to side. Occasionally a larger one got
us. Once the piece of driftwood
that was near the edge of the cabinet was tossed into the floor when an unusually
steep wave caught us. So that’s
why I was holding on so hard. It was not scary. It was just uncomfortable. I think the many trips to the Bahamas helped us cope with
the waves. We had enough
visibility to see the boats that were anchored fishing or the ones that were
traveling in the fog too. You’d be
surprised at how many fishermen we saw out there bouncing around in their
little boats.
We ran through a school of shiny, silver
fish for a mile or so. When they
flipped on their sides, they were at least the size of Gary’s hand. These are
pictures of dorsal fins of the fish we were running through all around the
boat. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them and I’m not
exaggerating. I wish I knew what
kind of fish they were. Look closely for the fins.
We had been hearing a boat called SAY
GOOD-BYE talk to other boats for a while.
As the fog broke, who should be nearby, but that boat? We talked to him and found out he was
going to Canada too. We let him go
ahead of us since he was going faster than we were. We fell in behind him and watched him roll almost as badly
as we did although he was 41 feet to our 30 feet.
As we got closer to land, the fog
came and went. The first picture
is of Long Island. The next two are of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. There were four large ships anchored near the bridge waiting for pilots to guide them out.
Next we saw four Navy ships and two tall ships decorated with
colorful flags.
After that was the
St. George Terminal Staten Island.
One of the large orange Staten Island ferries passed directly in front of us.
There were tugs and barges
everywhere. It was very much a
working harbor.
I took better pictures of both as we turned to port immediately before the statue to enter the channel for the Liberty State Park anchorage. We will be here until Allison and the grandkids join us next week.
Here are the views of the statue’s back and the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from our anchorage behind the Statue of Liberty.
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