We got a fairly early start out of Canyon Club Marina, but we definitely weren’t the first ones out. The security of being tied to a dock, after several rough nights at anchor, definitely lead to a better night’s sleep. It was nice not waking up several times during the night to check the boat’s position.
Cape May is essentially the start of the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway. Originally, we planned on starting up the ICW from Cape May, but based on the recommendation from our Navionics program, we decided to go out to the ocean to do the first leg of our trip up the NJ coast. The weather was looking perfect and the winds and swells were predicted to be light. Captain Mark was curious to try a day out on the open ocean, not to mention that it would save 5 miles of travel and avoid 5 mechanical bridges where we would have to wait for openings. As we’ve learned, some bridges open on request, others have set schedules, and some simply won’t open during certain hours to accommodate rush hour traffic. No matter which type of bridge they are, they definitely add more time to our travel.
As it turned out, the trip on the ocean was a good decision. As predicted, the water was relatively gentle, the winds were light and the air was warm. The downside was that open water is pretty boring. The pilot can set a bearing on the auto-pilot and then basically do nothing except watch for other boat traffic and make small adjustments periodically. We did see some very large pods of dolphins a fair distance from the boat, but we’ve noticed they are smart and don’t come very close to power boats. With our sailboat in San Diego, they will actually come right up to the boat, follow us and surf our wake when we are running under sail.
Our destination for the day was Atlantic City. We could see Atlantic City from a long way off, due to the tall building and distinctive profile. We had done a little research on the way toward Atlantic City Harbor, which indicated that there were free 4-hour docks where we could come ashore with our dinghy a short distance from a suitable anchorage. While reading through the comments of other boaters, Mark learned that there was actually a large 4-hour dock, where we might be able to pull right in with our trawler, go do our sight-seeing and then move to our anchorage. We decided that would be a better option if there was room at the dock, so we turned in the Harbor to circle around and scope out the situation. Sure enough, there was a long face dock, but there were already two good size trawlers on it, and not room for a third. There was also a shorter face dock, also labeled “4 hours”, but we weren’t quite sure if we could fit on it, without sticking off the end. We circled again, and decided to give it a go. We managed to get on the dock with only a little jolt to the front of the boat, and it was “good enough” as our boat only stuck out a couple of feet in the back. We tied up securely and got ready to head out, first trying to figure out if we needed to “check in” somewhere. We knew this dock had a security gate on it and we would have to get the code from someone in order to get back to our boat later.
As we were getting ready, a man came down the dock towards us. We figured this was probably the dockmaster, either ready to “check us in” or tell us that we couldn’t fit on the dock. As it turned out, he was another boater, who owned the boat tied up next to us. He explained that this dock is part of the Gardners Basin, connected with the “Atlantic City Aquarium”, which was still closed due to Covid, and as far as he could tell, there was no dockmaster, and no one enforcing the parking. It was his third time to Atlantic City since Covid, and he has used the 4-hour dock, even staying over-night, without anyone seeming to care, as it was officially “closed”. We looked around, and it appeared that there were many other boaters doing the same, even people parked at the “seasonal rental” docks which were probably not being rented if there was no one overseeing the docks. Always a stickler for following the rules, Sidekick Sue insisted we stop in at the Aquarium to see if we could “check in”, but, just as our neighbor explained, it was closed due to Covid. So…. It looked like we had a free dock for the night (Captain Mark thinks it was because he was wearing his lucky shirt). We figured the worst that could happen was someone telling us to move after 4 hours, but it didn’t happen. The last concern was the code lock on the gate, but Captain Mark and his engineering mind quickly figured out that he could reach through the gate and turn the doorknob on the other side without too much contortion. So, it was decided we were spending the night.
It was about 1 mile walk down to the start of the Atlantic City boardwalk. That first part of the boardwalk was largely undeveloped. It appears that perhaps it is an expansion of the original boardwalk, making room for more development in the future. But as we continued to walk, the number of casinos, hotels, and stores started to increase. We agreed it was the longest, widest boardwalk we had ever walked on, but it was pretty deserted (perhaps because it was Tuesday afternoon?). We took our obligatory trip into one casino, mostly just to use the restroom, but also to admire the art and the architecture; we really aren’t gamblers, so for us, casinos are just entertainment. We walked the boardwalk, watching the people, and stopping in a few interesting stores until Sidekick Sue had accumulated most of her Fitbit steps for the day. Since we still had to walk all the way back (probably 2.5 miles) back to our boat, we decided to cut diagonally across Atlantic City, stopping at a grocery store for a few pints of ice cream (thriftier than buying cones on the boardwalk). The areas off the strip are a bit “seedier”, but we had fun pointing out the names of the streets that the game of Monopoly made famous years ago…. we walked on Baltic, Mediterranean, crossing North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
By the time we got back to the boat, we both agreed that our snack had ruined our dinner appetites, so we would forgo the meal for the night. Sidekick Sue finally finished the jigsaw puzzle she had started during the storm and went to work finalizing the bills for the month of May. Captain Mark jumped on a bike to ride to the liquor store to “provision”, and spent most of the evening looking over route plans for the next few days. It appears some more nasty weather is coming for a couple of days near the end of the week, so we need to have some options ready if we need to stop again for a night or two. Tomorrow, we plan on trying the NJ ICW to compare against the ocean trip we made today, but chances are, we will stay in the ICW for the next few days anyway, with bad weather coming. As with most nights, we watched a few Youtube videos on our favorite “boating” channels, although without an electric hookup, we had to watch via the small screen (iPad) which we can charge off the battery.
