In the morning, we packed up and left our “free” dock (we were really just squatters). One of the other large boats had already left, but the neighbor who clued us into the “free” situation was still there with no sign of movement. Sidekick Sue quietly wondered if he was squatting there for the whole season.
We decided to take the NJ Intracoastal to see how it compared to the day on the ocean, especially since a weather system was headed our way. The water was shallow, as we had read. We started at low tide, thinking that it would get better as we moved. But due to the strange tides in the intracoastal, with the ocean water entering from different spots, we seemed to be chasing the low tide all morning. We definitely scrapped bottom a couple of times; you can feel the boat suddenly get sluggish and the steering doesn’t respond, but we were able to glide over the obstruction. The auto-pilot was not functioning well in the shallow water, so we had to go back to manual steering.
After ten miles, we pulled over to anchor in Great Bay, fired up the generator and made breakfast. We had been followed by a catamaran all morning, and when we stopped, he breezed past us. After having breakfast, we pulled anchor to move on. In about a mile, we approached the same catamaran, which appeared not to be moving. As we got closer, we thought it looked strange that he appeared to be maintaining position, but he wasn’t anchored. It all clicked when we saw the Boat US tow boat moving toward him…. he had ventured too far out of the channel and was completely grounded. We thought it was strange that he called for a tow when all he had to do was anchor, wait a few hours for the tide to rise, and he would have just floated off the sand (at least that is what the thrifty Explorers would have done).
Until this point in the day, the scenery had all been swampy areas on both sides, dotted with fishermen in small fishing boats anchored near the swamps. The path on our chart plotter was winding, taking us around shallow spots and small islands. We encountered several small little bay-like areas that seemed to have hundreds of white antenna-like poles protruding from the water. The “fishermen” in those areas, were out of their boats, waist deep in the water, just a couple hundred yards away from the boats in the channel. A little internet research revealed that these poles marked oyster beds, and these guys were farming oysters. There’s a lot we are learning, having never grown up on the shore.
About halfway through the day, the scenery changed to large mansions with docks and large yachts. We figured that we had reached the part of “the shore” that Jersey is so well known for. A little further up, we turned into our anchorage at the John C. Bartlett County Park on Berkeley Island in NJ. As we turned out of the channel, we looked behind to see the delayed catamaran finally catching up to us, although he kept going straight, likely to look for a marina for the night. The Explorers have noticed that most of the “loopers” they are encountering move from marina to marina; very few seem to anchor out like we are doing. Our anchorage was calm and quiet. There was one other boat anchored, but we saw no signs of anyone aboard. It hailed from a local spot in NJ, so we figured maybe it is just someone’s weekend hangout and they just leave it anchored in the bay.
We got out the dinghy, and rowed ashore to the park to get out and walk. The park was small, but nice, with a playground and splash park for the local kids and a pavilion for picnicking. Its most important feature was nice, clean bathrooms. LOL The walking path was short, so we continued on through the local neighborhoods, logging about 5 miles before rowing back to the boat. It was another typical night: eating dinner, catching up on the news, and watching a little TV before bed. We were expecting the rain to come in during the night, so we took a little extra time to make sure we were storm-ready, but when the rain finally came, it was nothing compared to our time in Cape May.
That looks like a cute little park.