June 1 - Atlantic City, NJ

Brigantine - Anchorage 

We had a busy morning even before we left the dock. Stan filled the water tanks and washed the boat and I took care of paying bills. It's hard to believe it's already June. 

We waited until the tide was coming in to leave, that way we had a little push and the water would be a little deeper in the spots we knew might give us trouble. The New Jersey ICW is only used by pleasure boats and isn't maintained to a consistent depth. This part of the ICW is very pretty in its own way and we enjoyed seeing all the beach towns. The ICW snaked through little bayous and VERY shallow bays. Stan and I both had to keep a close eye on the depth finder and the water. Even armed with very up to date info on every shoaling area, we still touched bottom three times. Luckily the bottom here is very soft and we were able to push off. No one who draws more than four feet would want to do this route. We were looking for new adventures and today we got it. 

Besides the route being very shallow, it was a Saturday and boats were everywhere. The people here really like to get out and fish...they seem to like to fish in the channel the best. Sometimes as many as 10-20 boats were in one small portion of the channel...they were small enough to be out of the channel, we weren't, so many had to move quickly to get out of our way. 

Houses of all sizes line the waterway from one room little shanties to large mansions, but most of the homes seemed to be of modest size. As we made our way close to Atlantic City we were slowed down even more. There are four bridges that are low, each open twice an hour and are only a few miles about. This means you wait and wait. Luckily the forth bridge was tall enough for us to get under when we lowered our mask...saved us fifteen minutes at least. The wind picked up all day and by the time we reached our anchorage it was blowing 25-30 MPH, which made anchoring very challenging. It was nice to be anchored and inside...even if we were rocking.

Homes near Wildwood

Herford Inlet near Wildwood...we were glad we weren't in the Atlantic today.

My favorite beach town we saw today was Sea Isle City...lots of things going on here today. 

Can you see the red and green markers? Notice where everyone is fishing? The water on either side of the markers is less than the four feet we need...people had to move.

Beach towns on one side of the ICW and marshy grassland on the other. 

Some of the houses that we saw along the water today...hard to remember which town, since they all run together. 

One of the small bridges we had to wait on, this one is in Ventnor City

The view of Atlantic City from the ICW