We're at Sandy Hook National Seashore in New Jersey.

Sandy Hook is a cape at the top of New Jersey just South of New York City harbor. We're anchored in a "cove" near the shore. It's a pretty spot, but no real protection from the many wakes that come across the large bay from all the passing boats across the bay, including large ferries to NYC.

On our way around the tip of the cape, we could clearly see New York City 12 miles away..... but it's not so clear in the picture. Maybe if you get your binoculars and look at the picture, you can see New York too.

We can dinghy into this beach near the boat. It's a completely deserted beach because it's hard to get to from the roads and is on the "bay side" of the park instead of the ocean beaches are well groomed, easily accessable and have ocean waves surf. Unfortunately, even though the beach looks nice down here by the water, it is also loaded with trash and flotsam at the high water line towartds shore, and there are acres of solid poisen ivy between the beach and the roads. Oh well, I guess we won't see these National Seashore beaches today, but at least we have an OK place to walk the dog and a nice view from the aft deck.

Tomorrow we're going in to get fuel at Atlantic Highlands Marina, where they supposedly have the lowest diesel fuel prices on the East Coast. Then we're meeting "Walter P", a Hatteras Owner's Forum member we met at the Miami boat show Hatteras boat displays. His Hatteras is here at the Patten Point Yacht Club in the Shrewsbury River nearby.

We're in Brielle, NJ - this is the beach and jetty coming in.

We cruised up the coast out in the Atlantic Ocean because the New Jersey ICW is very poorly maintained and shallow. Most of the way we were only about 2 miles or less from land in 30 to 60 ft. of water and the small line of beach on the horizon is the shore. The ocean here gets deep quickly and doesn't have the shallow shoals extending out far into the ocean like we have seen elsewhere. Even though it was a little cool at 70 degrees we went up to the flybridge after noon to enjoy the ocean.

The shoreline is the strip of barrier islands that run parallel to the coast. The top picture is the GPS screen as we were cruising today. The boat is the black arrowhead in the blue ocean and the shoreline is the yellow strip to the left of the boat. The white area between the barrier islands and the yellow mainland is shallow water and/or salt marshes. It's usually only a few feet deep at most and the ICW is somewhere in there. The bottom picture is the miles and miles of beach homes all along the strip. Great place for a beach home.... until the hurricanes come, that is.

WHAT IS IT?

When we were out in the middle of the ocean, I saw this big fin sticking up and waving around in the air.

SUNFISH! I went back to see it and it was an absolutely huge sunfish. It looked like it easily weighed hundreds of pounds. No way to get a good measurement, I just know it was huge. These are normally pelagic fish (open ocean wanderers) that stay near the surface. I don't know if it's rare to see them or not, but it really was a thrill for us. There were 3 ft. waves and I had to stop and turn around t0 manuver to be able to see it so the boat wallowed around like crazy in the waves, but who cares? It was totally cool!

We're in Atlantic City, NJ.

We're staying at the Trump Marina, next to the Trump hotel and casino. There are lots of other Trump buildings here and on the Boardwalk. It's like Trump everything.

A little game of Monopoly, anyone? Here's Boardwalk, and we passed Park Place, Atlantic Avenue and Indiana Avenue on the way here. On the boardwalk, we bought the requisite Fralinger's Salt Water Taffy, made famous here. Remember the rootbeer flavored one that's white with a brown stripe? That's still my favorite.

Then we went into Caesar's casino. I didn't play blackjack because the cheapest table was a minimum of $25 per game, so we just played video poker. Kathy was up $10 at one point but eventually she lost her $10 and I lost $15, so we called it quits. I guess we could have saved time by losing that $25 on one game of blackjack.

Next to the boardwalk, of course, is miles of beach with a good surf. We were cruising off this beach and even though there were 3 ft. waves, it seemed like less because the waves were so far apart (like an 8 second period) that instead of bouncing, it's more like a ride uphill and then a ride back down.

Beach Day!

It was a perfectly beautiful day today, so we went to the beach in Cape May. They don't allow dogs on the Atlantic Ocean beaches, but they do allow dogs (on a leash) on the Delaware Bay beaches. Cape May is the point of land that spans the Atlantic Ocean around to the Delaware Bay. The waves were smaller, but Daisy loved chasing a stick thrown into the surf. Luckily, our leash is 25 ft. long so she can run and jump into the surf after the stick. Of course, I had to hose her off with fresh water on the bow of the boat after we got back to get rid of the salt water.

For lunch, we had hot dogs with prickly pear mustard from St. Michaels (Thanks Deb!). It's good with pickle relish. I went and got a haircut here and Kathy went to the bookstores to stock up on books to read, which she frequently does during her spare time.

We're in New Jersey!

We cruised all the way from the top of Delaware Bay to the Atlantic Ocean. As you can see on the Great Loop Route map, it's much shorter than the Chesapeake Bay and with few interesting places to stop. Delaware Bay is just the small straight part going Southeast at the end of the red line of our trip. Compared to Chesapeake Bay, with lots of stopoff places and extra side trips, Delaware Bay was nothing. But Hey! Look at that red line of our total trip.... we're really making progress!

We passed by a number of large barges, much larger and much taller than we see on the inland rivers and only a single barge being pushed by the tug instead of 6 to 15 barges tied together into a "tow".

We also passed by this nuclear power plant, or "nucular" as George would say. The rest of the shoreline was pretty much uninteresting, somewhat commercial looking or salt marsh areas. The NOAA forecast for today was for waves of only 1 ft., but it was actually 3 ft. all the way. So stay inside and run the windshield wipers again. At least it was a nice sunny day.

Cape May is the farthest tip of New Jersey on the North side of Delaware Bay. It has miles and miles of very nice beaches with real surf (about 2 to 3 ft. breakers) which I'm sure get a lot bigger on more windy days. Kathy found a few New Jersey seashells to add to her collection in the candlestand, but not very many good shells here. We'll stay in Cape May for a few days and then go up towards New York City. We'll wait here for good weather because we have to go outside in the Atlantic Ocean from here to NYC due to the poor condition and shoaling of the New Jersey ICW.

We're in Delaware! We cruised up to the top of the Chesapeake today and crossed the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal to the top of the Delaware Bay.

On the way out of Baltimore, we passed the big Navy supply ships, the huge hospital ship "Comfort", and these gigantic, guppy shape carrier ships, all of which we had seen on our harbor cruise of Baltimore 2 days ago. Geoff had noticed that the shining spots next to the huge carrier ships were all Mercedes Benz cars, so they're auto delivery ships (with an appropriate German sounding name).

Then on our way up in the Chesapeake, we got passed by an armored tank racing across the water of the bay! Really! a genuine Army tank with a canon and turret on top and everything!

In fact, we got passed twice, since it went down the bay and then turned around and went back up past us again. I know it's hard to see any detail, but it's simply a tank. It made an absolutely huge spray as it powered through the water, and it had a military escort boat and some other observation boat trailing along. Kathy said that her charts labeled this area the "Aberdeen Proving Grounds". I don't think the tank slowed down to reduce it's wake to a courteous level as it passed. Rude Army guys!

It was a nice flybridge day with blue skies, temps about 80 and waves of about 1 ft. The C&D Canal was pretty much a straight shot dug through to connect these two huge bays at the top. It has homes, pastoral scenes and bridges as you go through. Of course, if Kathy has a donut, she also has a best friend paying close attention. We got those donuts (and some cookies) at Berger's Cookies in Baltimore at the Marketplace, where we also had a great crabcake for lunch yesterday at Faidley's. Geoff - it was really good.... second only to Tristan's in Charleston. You'll have to try Tristan's with us sometime.

Tonight, we're staying at the marina in Delaware City. "City" is somewhat of a misnomer because we saw almost every street in this teeny town in about half an hour riding in the marina's loaner golf cart. Tomorrow, we plan to run down the Delaware Bay to the ocean at Cape May where we'll stay for a few days to see the area.

Sunday mornings on the boat in port are always nice..... a slow breakfast, reading the Sunday paper (especially the comics), good coffee.



We said goodbye Geoff and Deb today.... Deb back to Chicago, and Geoff off to L.A. and his multiple consulting jobs. The consulting lifestyle is rewarding, but too demanding for me.... I'm glad to leave that to Geoff, whom has the wherewithall to keep up with it.


Then we met friends from Glen Ellyn, IL, Tom and Kathleen Drouin and their daughter Anique and her husband Ben to go to dinner here. Kathy and I shared two very good, giant crabcakes. The restaurant is well known for steamed blue crabs and almost all the other tables were cracking crabs with their little wood mallets, but that's too much work for me. Ben says it's great for a big group with lots of time to talk, piles of crabs, and lots of beer.

We're in Baltimore, MD!

When we left the anchorage near St. Michaels this morning, the tide was high and the beach where we took Daisy for a walk yesterday had completely disappeared by this morning. Kathy is standing in front of the same beach where Geoff was in the picture yesterday.

Then we cruised up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore, MD. Most of the cruise was in cloudy weather with 3 ft. waves (had to run the windshield wipers and stay inside). But by the time we reached Baltimore, is was sunny and blue skies. After we got in, we went back out for a short harbor cruise with some of Geoff & Deb's friends here, John & Susan Kamauff.

We passed by Fort McHenry, the fort where the flag was still flying after bombs bursting in air in the War of 1812, to inspire Francis Scott Keys to write The Star Spangled Banner.

This evening, we went to dinner with the Peters and the Kamauffs at Da Mimmo, an excellent Italian restaurant in Baltimore. It was easily the best dinner we've had on the whole trip (thanks to Geoff and Deb again!). Kathy had the largest veal chop I've ever seen and Daisy will be eating the leftovers for two days. We'll be in Baltimore 2 days and then on to the Delaware Bay through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (if it has been reopened yet... a boat sank in the canal!).

Friends from Chicago, Geoff and Deb Peters, met us at the boat this morning as we were saying goodbye to our friend John Schmuck. We cruised across the Chesapeake Bay, past "Bloody Point Light" to the town of St. Michaels, MD. It's a cute and quaint touristy harbor town.

The Crab Claw restaurant at St. Michaels has a nice dock where you can dock free if you eat lunch there, which we did (thanks Geoff!) and then you can leave your boat there to go see the town.

The town does have touristy shops, but they seemed to be better quality than other harbor towns like this. The girls found knick-knacks they liked and also bought yarn and knitting patterns.

After seeing St. Michaels, we went out to an anchorage Marshall Gafne told us about. It's a very nice anchorage good protection from wind and waves and a beach where we could land the dinghy to take Daisy for a walk.

The beach had numerous horseshoe crab shells laying around, like the one Geoff is holding up. Daisy had to stop and sniff each one. Geoff threw it back in the water and Daisy almost went swimming after it, so we threw a stick for her instead. I also got a snail shell to add to Kathy's collection.

We'll be leaving the anchorage tomorrow to go to Baltimore for a couple days before leaving the Chesapeake.

On Monday, we went to Point Lookout, MD which is the very tip of the mouth of the Potomac River on the Chesapeake Bay.
We passed this really cute little island as we left Belmont Harbor. At least it is an island using the St. Lawrence Seaway description, which is: if it has a tree, it's officially an island (if it doesn't, it's just called a rock, regardless of size. It would be fun to go there, but when you look at it on the charts, it's all 1 ft. and 2 ft. deep out hundreds of feet from the island. We'd have to get out and walk to it if we wanted to go ashore.

Yesterday, we went up the Potomac to Solomons Island, MD, about halfway to Annapolis. We're in a very nice harbor within walking distance to the teeny "town".
But we don't have to walk because the marina has free bicycles to ride to town. That's John and Kathy on their bikes. Neither had ridden for a long time, but "Hey.. you never forget... it's just like riding a bike".


We visited the Univ. of Maryland Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and we found that over harvesting and habitat destruction has totally ruined the once large Chesapeake oyster harvest. The last year shown on the chart is 2003 and the harvest was obviously very small. After a paltry 750,000 bushels in the year 2000 (compared to 14 million bushels in 1900) it dropped to an even more paltry 100,000 bushels in 2003. Then today, we went to eat some fried local oysters. Oops... sorry... but they were delicious.

We were going to go across the Chesapeake today to Cambridge, MD but the NOAA forecast for the Chesapeake was for 4 ft. waves so we decided to stay here another day and then go up to Annapolis tomorrow when it's supposed to be nice again.

Instead, we went to visit the Calvert Maritime Museum here, on bikes again. It includes a lot of interesting old style wooden boats, maritime history, an aquarium with lots of local fish and an excellent river otter display with two really cool, playful river otters, and this completely restored Chesapeake Bay lighthouse. This is the Drum Point Lighthouse and when it was decommissioned it was disassembled and brought here to be restored as a display at the museum. It was very interesting.

Then, this afternoon, John and I installed a voltage meter in the dashboard of my dinghy. I always want to know the charge condition of the batteryt and if the new voltage regulator is working correctly, and this will let me see that quickly every time I run it. It's the gauge in the upper right corner, which balanced out the dash since that was empty before.

Tomorrow, we'll cruise up to Annapolis, MD where John will depart and Geoff & Deb Peters will meet us on Friday for a 2 day cruise to St. Michaels and then Baltimore.

We went down the Potomac today and stopped at Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington.

It was nice because Mt. Vernon has a very good quality deep water dock on the Potomac River where the tour boats from Washington and Alexandria land. If there's room, they'll let private boats dock there and there was room. We could walk Daisy and then go tour Mt. Vernon for 3 hours or so and leave Nonchalance at their dock.

The buildings and grounds were in incredibly original condition and well restored as required, with many pieces of George and Martha's furniture, the chair he used as President, which he brought back to Mt. Vernon to use in his study, the bed he slept in and died upon and much more. Unfortunately, they will not allow any pictures to be taken in the mansion.

One of the most interesting things to me was the original black walnut handrails for the staircases, which you were allowed to use as you went up and down the stairs. These were the same handrails that George Washington's hands held hundreds of times as he lived at Mt. Vernon. With today's concern about preservation of everything like this, it's really neat that they specifically let you touch these pieces of American history.

The slave quarters were also restored to as they were in Washington's days. It looks meager, but by any comparison it was high quality living arrangements for slaves in the 18th century. The other end of the house has a fireplace and table and chairs. George Washington understood the dichotomy between the new United States and slave labor, treated his slaves well and he freed his slaves when he died in 1799.

His tomb and that of Martha plus many more recent family members are buried here. George's remains are in the marble sarcophagus on the right. In his will, he required that his body lay in state in their dining room for 3 days, however the real reason for this request was a fear that he had after hearing of people being thought dead and then buried only to wake up alive.

We're staying the night at Belhaven Harbor along the Potomac River and will go to the mouth of the Potomac tomorrow and then into the Chesapeake again Tuesday.

John and I visited the new Dulles Airport displays fo the National Air and Space Museum today. After seeing the one on the Mall, this was the icing on the cake.

You get a very close look at many historically important aircraft like this WWII Corsair fighter which could fly over 400MPH in 1944 and amassed an 11 to 1 kill ration over enemy fighters.

And the actual Enola Gay - the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima to help end the war. There has been some controversy about displaying this aircraft because while the Hiroshima mission did help end the war earlier, it also dealt such terrible death and destruction to Japanese civilians.

What I really enjoyed about this P-38 fighter-bomber is the they have left the actual WWII paint, with all of its battle scars, on the plane. Almost every other aircraft in the museum is restored to exacting standards, but that makes them look so new, even though they have all seen heavy use.

I took way too many pictures of neat airplanes to publish here, but how could I not include this one of John looking at the Blackbird, which was so super secret that it flew missions for over 10 years before the public or the press knew it even existed.

Tomorrow. we're heading back down the Potomac towards the Chesapeake Bay.

We took in more Washington DC sights yesterday and today.

First we went to see the National Archives, including the original Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and many other original historical documents. And no, that's not a flash picture. They're very touchy about that! The displays were well done and in good condition, in spite of the fact that we visited most of the sights along with approximately 20% of all 8th graders in the entire country.

One of my favorite places is the National Air and Space Museum on the Washington Mall. It is simply incredible how many historic and totally cool aircraft and spacecraft they have. To see the actual Spirit of Saint Louis, the actual Wright Flyer (the first airplane to fly), the actual X-15 rocket plane (the first to break the sound barrier) and hundreds of others just gives me goosebumps.

And it's awesome to see the actual Apollo 11 space capsule ("Houston, we have a problem"). It did make it back to earth and here it is. Wow!

That evening our friends John and Susan Schmuck from Glen Ellyn, IL visited us with their daughter Elizabeth, whom works in Washington DC. John will cruise with us back down the Potomac. Nice to see longtime friends when you're out cruising for so long. You know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that cruising is fun.... Oh, wait...! John actually was a rocket scientist!