Salt Shaker on the Loop: Cape May, NJ to the "Big Apple"

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We left Utche's Marina on 6/11 bound for the big apple. A bit behind on my postings, eh? We chose to go outside on the Atlantic instead of the NJ intra coastal for this part of the journey because we were advised by more than one that the NJ part of the ICW is not being maintained and was unpredictably shallow and had unpredictable shoaling. That being the case, we lucked into a good day on the Atlantic and it was "throttles forward."

The Atlantic, as well as the Gulf of Mexico is interesting. We had 3's and 4's waves that were left over from earlier east winds on top of a swell system that you really could not see. The 3's and 4's were far enough apart that we could plane with little difficulty and without abusing the boat. But you did have to hang on. The swell system showed up by causing the boat to slow down as we climbed up the hills and really speed up as we descended downward. We saw the GPS speed over bottom readout vary from as low as 14.7 knots going uphill to as much as 23.7 knots going down hill.

We slowed down about once an hour to give the horses a rest and have lunch by Atlantic City where we could see the results of all of Trump's activities and the second time for a snack just north of Toms River.

Rounding Sandy Hook and then heading north toward the narrows we were greeted by the Verrazano Bridge.

And to the Manhattan Skyline. This is only a sample.

The Staten Island Ferry. These boats stop or change course for no one. Plot your course accordingly!

The Lady!

This is our first anchoring on the trip. There is a really neat anchorage behind the statue that will accommodate maybe 6 or 8 boats. At night the statue was really pretty in all the lights. There is a story that relates to our anchor not holding at our first attempt and some people fishing on the shore. A small verbal exchange took place. I can not tell it accurately and be politically correct at the same time so I will just tuck it away in my memory and have a chuckle about it every so often.

This is the next morning leaving our anchorage for Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, NJ. A wonderful view of Ellis Island, an island that had so much to do with our people and our history.

This is the restaurant associated with our marina. A rather good one too. We had a small dinner there our second night. The marina is on the south side of a rather lengthy canal that serves several water facilities. One of the boats that passed our marina had, besides a capable tender on one side of the top deck, it also had a mid sized automobile next to the tender with the crane necessary to off load it and put it back on the boat. I did not get a picture of it. It happened too fast. I should remark that this was our most expensive marina to date. It just costs more in the big city.

This was from the top deck of the ferry we took from Jersey City to the financial district of Manhattan. Not visible are some swimmers in the water accompanied by their "team" boats. They were swimming south, the way we are looking. There was an announcement earlier in the day on channel 16 by the coast guard to alert boaters about this activity.

We visited the Trade Center site. I came away from this more convinced than ever that we have a movement of real enemies, some of whom are cunningly capable. Pat was glad to leave the area because it had an particularly strong emotional effect on her.

Rear of St. Paul's Chapel where so many pictures of the missing were attached to the fence. The front of the Chapel is directly across the street from the Trade Center complex.