August 14 – Tuesday
A beautiful morning with a light breeze out of the north, and we were the only boat in the anchorage. The near shore forecast was unchanged, indicating good conditions in the morning and even lighter winds in the afternoon. Cape May wasn’t that far so we had breakfast at anchor and then decided to try to swing the fluxgate compass and reset the heading in hopes it would work again. The pond we were anchored in was ideal for the task and it worked – as a test, we allowed the autohelm to steer us out of the inlet and all was well with our world at 08:00 this Tuesday morning.
As we headed down the coast we noticed a number of large orange buoys strung out about half a mile off the beach and surmised they probably had something to do with the air show that was to take place on Wednesday. The ride along the southern NJ coast, was visually more relaxing. There weren’t the tall buildings and continuous chain of beach towns that we saw in the north. Also there were very few sport fishing and head boats to avoid. The inlet for Cape May showed up right on schedule and since Polly had phoned Utsch’s Marina earlier for a slip reservation, we knew exactly where we were headed. We entered the marina breakwater and put FLIGHT right into the same slip (next to the old dredge) where she had been in June, when we were heading north and this adventure was just beginning. Very fitting, we thought, to close the circle this way. Even though the seas had been pretty tame, we had picked up some fine spray here and there and the boat had that sticky salt water feel when you grabbed a rail. We had been spoiled by the 6 weeks in fresh water. So first thing we did was give her a good soap and water bath, top to bottom. Following that, we both took advantage of the luxurious bath house facilities that Utsch’s Marina has for guests – literally, large individual full bath rooms, each with large walk-in shower, toilet and lavatory sink. They are decorated with ceramic tile on the floor and walls and have teak benches and air conditioning, of course. They are the best we have ever experienced.
Polly had also made a reservation for dinner at Fresco’s, a nice restaurant we had found a few years ago when we visited Cape May on our sail boat, Purpose. Fresco’s was only about a mile from the marina so we walked to dinner. On the walk back to the boat, we stopped at a food market for a few things and were surprised to see that the store’s parking lot had a ticket booth and gate. Apparently parking space is at such a premium that they charged customers who parked longer than a few minutes allowed to shop.
Wednesday’s forecast for Delaware Bay sounded fairly favorable with 10-15 kts. winds out of the SW and seas 2-3 feet. Also an important factor was the tide current, which would be flooding (going up the bay in the same basic direction we were headed) for most of the morning. That should mean a push to our speed plus have a neutralizing effect on waves since the wind would be flowing in a similar direction to the current. The Delaware Bay can be very lumpy under certain conditions and tide and wind direction are always a factor to be considered. For us, things looked pretty good for the morning.