We had a quick 45 mile sail from Cape May to Atlantic City. Although not a stop over we look forward to, Atlantic City is the only logical stop given the distance to the next port of call.
We pulled in to the new city docks at the historic Gardner Basin at about 2:00 p.m.. Much to our delight, the marina hosts an aquarium/museum and is in a totally renovated area of Atlantic City. The historic Gardner Basin has been completely renovated and restored back to the fishing history of a century ago. There are nice restaurants, shops and plenty of tourists in this area. The one thing it doesn’t have, given it’s in Atlantic City, is the gambling aspect, which suits us just fine.
Thursday we had planned to move on to the next stop along the Jersey coast, but it was rainy and stormy out, so we decided to stay put in Atlantic City for another day. We took on some provisions and just relaxed and enjoyed the area.
Happy Independence day! We woke Friday ready to go, we planned to go into the Manquan Inlet, northeastern NJ as our next stop, , but found there was no place that evening that could take us given the holiday. We decided to stay put in Atlantic City as we had a nice slip in a really great little Marina. We enjoyed the holiday relaxing and doing a little more sightseeing of the area. We ventured back to the boardwalk (Monica’s favorite spot), as she was dying to have her palm read. She selected a palm reader and had her palm read, all good things of course. She had fun, and we got a kick out of watching it all.
On Saturday, we had a confirmed reservation for a marina on the Manasquan River. There is no place to anchor on the Jersey shore before Sandy Hook, which is at the northern tip of NJ, and would have made a VERY long day for us, close to 80 miles. Since it was forecasted to be hot and humid, we were fine to be pulling into a marina and hooked up the AC. We ultimately wished we had pushed on to the anchorage at Sandy Hook…the Manasquan Inlet is so dicey, we recommend all our sailing friends steer clear of this place. First thing, you’re in power boat heaven, these power boaters have little regard for sailors, no matter what the conditions. Secondly, on the approach to the inlet from the Atlantic, the seas are pushing you at a rate of 3 to 4 knots and you surf in on waves 7 to 8 feet. The inlet is narrow and big power boats are everywhere, cutting in front of the bow or creating opposing wakes to the point of minimal control. We made it through the inlet and had to go up river to the marina. We found a fixed RR bridge that we had to go through that was questionable as to whether or not our spreaders and mast would clear, this was all being done fighting a 3 knot current. We arrived at the marina with boats backed up everywhere trying to get in. Since we were fighting a 3 knot current, we definitely needed assistance getting into the slip. We finally were tied off for the evening, cracked open a cold beer, and promised this would be our last visit to this “hell hole”.
We were happy to be leaving the Jersey shore...