June 2 - Ocean Gate, NJ

Cocktail Cove - Anchorage

Last night was long, windy and loud. The wind blew all night long, and the only anchorage in the area gave us little protection from it. We were so tired from the stressful trip up the ICW that the sounds of the howling wind, the flags flapping, the bimini straps whistling and the anchor line banging just lulled us to sleep. Each time I woke up the noises were still going on. This morning the wind had slowed to about 15 MPH. Still higher than we like, but we didn't want to stay here, so as soon as the tide started to come in we headed out.   

I've heard it said that if you haven't grounded your boat you haven't been cruising long or you are lying. Well we've had The Pearl for 3 1/2 years and today is the first time I can actually say we have grounded our baby. We came to a complete stop...stuck in the soft muddy bottom of the NJICW. Luckily the tide was still rising and we were loose in about ten minutes. The first 15 miles or so today was extremely slow. Stan called Seatow and got advice about the trouble spots along the way and we were being very careful, trying to follow their exact instructions and we still managed to find a shallow spot. Of course finding the shallow spots aren't difficult in this area...it's all shallow. It's finding the spots that are just a little deeper than our draft that is hard. We spent hours watching each marker and analyzing the water. Our polarized sunglasses helped a lot. Once we made it to the Beach Haven Inlet things improved quite a bit and running up Barnegat Bay seemed relaxed, even though it was very windy and the water was rough. At least we didn't have to worry about the depth. 

We were trying to make it to Manasquan today, but that was too far considering how late we left and how slow we had to travel. We found a great little cove in Tom's River, named Cocktail Cove, which gave us protection from the wind and a quiet place to relax. It felt wonderful to finally get a break from the howling wind. 

The narrow entrance out of our anchorage this morning. Notice how flat it is here...it looked like this on all sides, no protection at all from wind. 

We could see Atlantic City in the distance for quite a while today.

These are about the only birds we saw today. It seems like this marshy area would be full of birds, but it's not.

This poor guy was grounded in Barnegat Bay at about a 45º angle. Not fun!

Views from our anchorage