Up at 0600 and underway at 0645... cold and windy... we could hear the surf crashing on the beach nearly a mile away so we decided to stay inside and not venture out into the Atlantic. Forecast is in a settling trend getting better and better each day so a day inside should will give things more time to settle down in the Atlantic.

About 30 minutes after getting underway the sky opened up and it started raining... which continued for the majority of the day... so it not only cold and windy... it was also raining... a perfect day to cruise.

Inside route is shallow... most of the day we were running just above idle.. with the depth sounder not even registering a depth... depth sounder stops registering at about 5.3 feet... we typically were in water from 5.3 to 7 feet... a few places we did see some deeper water and were able to run at normal speed and we had an incoming tide that was boosting our speed a little. But basically, it was a cold, rainy and slow moving day.

Had several bridges to deal with... all luckily only needing us to drop out VHF antennas to clear... except at Manasquan... the railroad bridge that is normally open was closed... had to hail it on the VHF several times before finally getting a reply to keep approaching... it slowly opened... very very slowly and we had current against us at this point. Very narrow opening and with current against us made passing through a bit hairy but we made it without issue.

We talked about continuing on to New York and thought we would venture out the inlet to see what conditions were like... when the inlet came into view or I should say "not in view" we opted to stop as we originally planned... the inlet was fogged in with pea soup thick fog... not going to deal with fog and rough seas... :)

So as we reached the inlet, we turned to starboard and headed to our destination for the night... Shrimp Box Restaurant. We were docked at the Shrimp Box restaurant docks at 1645... Location 40°06.111'N,74°02.260'W. We traveled today for 10 hours covering 56.54 nautical miles averaging 5.65 knots.

We left Chesapeake City this morning at 0715 to get a favorable current for our trip to Cape May, NJ. IN the past we found that if we leave Chesapeake City so we arrive to Reed Point at just after high tide we carry a favorable current all the way to Cape May.

And today it worked very well... just before Cape May we lost our boots but for a good part of the day we were making over 8 knots... lost it going through Cape May and out the inlet to the Atlantic... but soon got our boost back once we cleared the Cape May Inlet.... carried it all the way to Atlantic City until we turned into the Absecon Inlet and then we had it full bore on the bow.... 5 knots all the way in to our dock for the night at Gardners Basin Marina in Atlantic City, NJ.

Conditions today.... Delaware River and Delaware Bay were choppy but not bad... the Atlantic from Cape May to Atlantic City... pretty nasty... 6 to 8 foot swell with about a 10 second period and the period shortened as we got closer to Atlantic City... they were almost beam seas so it gave a very rock and roll ride for 5 hours.

We arrived to Atlantic City at 2100... Location 39°22.579'N,74°25.275'W. Traveled today for 13 hours and 45 minutes covering 99.6 nautical miles averaging 7.24 knots.

Weather system moving over the area and this is a great place to hold up as it passes.

The sailboat that was in front of decided to move on to Cape May and hold up there for a couple of days while the system passes... I helped them off the dock... they were concerned about the winds and being so close to SAILS.

The trawler behind us decided to move their boat back 10 feet... they were nervous about being so close to us.