Our Last Day On the Ocean (For Awhile)

Over the past month, we have made our way north from the Chesapeake Bay and are in New York again! We stopped for a few nights in Chesapeake City, MD, which is a lovely little town on the C&D Canal. I’ve posted in depth about this town before from previous stops we’ve made, so I didn’t really take many photos while we were there this time. It's funny because last time we were there, the kids were all dressed up for homecoming and were out and about taking photos. This time, we just happened to arrive on prom night and it was the exact same thing! Ironic timing!

We got off the boat and went for a walk one night and both came back with ticks crawling on us! Eek! They are BAD this year!

We made a quick stop for fuel, water and pump out at Summit North Marina in Bear, Delaware and then continued on through the Delaware Bay that afternoon.

We had planned on anchoring before dark that night, but the forecast was totally wrong and the wind had shifted so it was entirely too wavy to anchor where we had planned. Our only option was to continue on through the darkness.  Unfortunately, the next safe port was about 5 hours away in Cape May, New Jersey. The bad weather turned into a small craft advisory, complete with 4-6 foot waves and lightning! It honestly got a little scary at times!

We had filled up our water jugs and diesel jugs before leaving that afternoon and one of the waves sent the water jugs crashing into the cockpit floor, releasing 7 gallons of water all over floor! It completely cracked the jug from the force!

Thankfully, it wasn’t the diesel that jug that had broken or we really would’ve had a mess! Thankfully, there is a large shipping channel through the Delaware Bay that is generally free from crap pots and other obstructions, but we had to deviate course several times to get out of the way of freighters and container ships approaching from our aft. The waves were relentless that night and did not let up at all until we turned into the Cape May Canal.  This canal is pretty narrow, so we got the spotlight out to traverse it at night. Finally, around 2:30am, we were able to drop anchor in Cape May near the Coast Guard training center.

We had planned on staying all week, but after seeing that the next morning was our only chance to head out into the ocean with fair weather for the foreseeable future, we decided to rally and just get the trip over with.  We worked that day and went to bed early in hopes of getting a little sleep in before having to get up at 3:30am. 

We woke up to a dark and silent anchorage, pulled up our anchor and  headed out into the ocean for what would be our last ocean cruise for awhile.

That day, we cruised along the New Jersey coast and for the first time, had very favorable conditions on this stretch.  If you’ll recall our experience here last year, this is when our solar arch ripped off the boat from pounding into the waves all day. This time was much more enjoyable, and after the night we had in the Delaware Bay, it was a welcomed reprieve! After this day of cruising, we would be back into the rivers and officially out of the ocean for awhile. It was a bittersweet feeling knowing this as we neared New York.  We were able to see tons of dolphins playing, sea turtles and we even saw a WHALE off the coast of New Jersey!  We saw a tour boat checking something out and just assumed it was dolphins, but as we got closer saw that it was a humpback whale! How cool! Last year on our journey north, we did not see whales until Massachusetts, so it was very neat seeing them here, and what a send off for us as we departed the ocean!

That night, we anchored by Sandy Hook and enjoyed an absolutely incredible sunset!  We waved “bye for now” to the ocean as we rounded the hook, and promised we’d be back again someday.

The next day, we awoke to hundreds of little fishing boats, large fishing charters, and ferries zooming by in every direction. There was all sorts of commotion and boats were getting uncomfortably close to us while we were anchored.

One small center console even lost his engine and started drifting towards us and had to anchor until the tow boat showed up to help him!  It was all a little much for us while we were trying to work, so that afternoon when we finished working, we headed over to Great Kills Harbor at Staten Island. This was much more protected and a relatively quiet harbor.  The weather was windy and rainy while we were there, so we didn’t even step foot onto Staten Island, but it was honestly a nice little break just relaxing after traveling so hard the past few weeks.

Ironically, after we left, we watched a movie called “Nonna’s” about a restaurant that is still in operation on Staten Island and would’ve definitely visited for dinner had we seen the movie prior to arriving!  We’ll have to go back sometime because we definitely want to check out Staten Island.