Set the alarm for 0500 hours in order to get an early start and catch the ebb current out of New York Harbor. However, we did not get away as quickly as planned… pulled the anchor and was underway at 0645 hours. We still caught a good boost in speed for the first couple of hours… made out of Ambrose Channel and heading Sandy Hook before we lost our boost from the current. But the 8.5 to 9.5 knots for those couple of hours was very nice.

Sunday and the fishermen were out in large numbers today… along the Jersey shore it was like a slalom course zigzagging around all of the boats and they don’t seem to try and get out of your way at all. Most of them are trolling and will pass right across your bow and then they hail you on the VHF and yell at you for not altering your course.

Forecast for today was for 3-4 seas, west winds 15-20 knots, gusts to 25 knots… exiting New York Harbor was a little rough but once we got further south and along the Jersey shore the conditions settled down… the 3-4 seas was an ocean swell and we were close enough to shore that the west winds were not stirring up any waves over a foot or two so the ride was much better than we had anticipated.

Destination for the day… Atlantic City… a long day.

After a very calm day of cruising we arrived to Atlantic City and docked in Gardner Basin… N39°22.578’, W074°25.274’ at approximately 1945 hours. It is a restaurant dock so dinner will be out tonight.

We traveled today for 13 hours covering 89.58 nautical miles averaging 6.89 knots.

We departed from Oyster Bay, NY at approximately 1040 hours. We planned our destination for the day to be New York City… anchoring behind the Statue of Liberty in a small anchorage area adjacent to Liberty State Park.

We departed late on purpose so that we would have favorable currents through the East River and Hell Gate. It switched from flood to ebb tide at approximately 1430 hours at Hell Gate… leaving after 1000 hours would put us at Hell Gate at approximately 30 minutes after the tide switched to ebb.

We arrived to Hell Gate at 1506 hours and we were already getting a 1.5 knot boost in speed and soon we were going 9 knots down the East River. It’s really nice when you get a boost of speed like this and I was not even running at cruising rpm… we should have been going about 6 knots at the rpm I was running and we were doing 9 knots… very nice!

Being Saturday the boaters were out and playing… saw too many boats to even begin to recount them now. One thing was nice was that we noticed a lot of boats that were doing as we are… heading south to warmer weather. I imagine the further south we see even more cruisers headed south.

Wind and waves were not an issue today… we did see winds up to 30 knots but they were not creating any waves to speak of… 1-2 seas all day… well almost all day. When we got to New York Harbor and the Hudson River the waves did pick up but not from the wind…. From the boat and ship traffic… it always seems to the case in this location.

We pulled past the Statue of Liberty and into our anchorage area and who did we run into but one of our winter neighbors from Punta Gorda. Dick who was our neighbor almost directly behind us at Fishermen’s Village… can’t remember his last name… but there he was aboard his 34’ Marine Trader. We swung along side and exchanged some hellos and small talk… sure was nice to run into him. He is headed back to Punta Gorda again this year. So I am sure our paths will cross again as we travel south.

We anchored at approximately 1630 hours at N40°41.763’, W074°03.875’. There is a boat ramp just west of us that has a floating dock. Makes it real handy to go ashore and walk Beecha.

We traveled today for 5 hours and 50 minutes covering 36.65 nautical miles averaging 6.28 knots.

Waited out a weather front today... Did not move... Will head out Saturday.