Cape May NJ (2013-10-29)

N38° 57.026', W74° 53.028'

Our patience waiting for the weather gods to stop playing their silly games awarded us with a grand passage from Atlantic City to Cape May yesterday.  We popped out into the Atlantic just past 0900 and found an ocean much calmer than it had been when we arrived, and it stayed comfortable for the little over 4 hours it took us to reach the Cape May inlet.

We had a bit of a swell on the port stern quarter to contend with, but frankly after the conditions we had on our first two passages along the New Jersey coast, it was more than acceptable.

We arrived in Cape May early in the afternoon and dropped the hook in front of the Coast Guard training base here, east of their docks.  A quick look at the weather forecast revealed that the Delaware Bay was going to be 'adventurous' on Tuesday, so we decided to take the day off and wait for a much better weather window that was shaping up for Wednesday.

Today I dropped the dinghy into the water, and with the help of the local MTOA 'port captain', managed to get one of our propane tanks refilled and took care of a couple other errands.

If you look in the left hand column of this blog you'll see a number of links listed there.  For cruisers, organizations like MTOA, AGLCA and SSCA, that have support mechanisms in place, are invaluable resources when you find yourself in an unfamiliar port.  We could have dinghied to shore today and probably spent an hour or two trying to get our errands taken care of, but with the assistance of a local volunteer that not only knows the area, but is willing to help by driving you around, we got the same list done in about 15 minutes.  I can't speak highly enough about organizations like these, and the information and support resource that they represent.  In fact, I wouldn't put a link on my blog unless it was something that I actively utilize myself and honestly feel that it is worth telling people about.  Oh, and do support your local CPS squadron.

Tomorrow we'll be stopping to pick up some fuel before we leave Cape May and venture out into the Delaware Bay.  We're not sure yet if we'll try to push through the C&D Canal to Chesapeake City, or if we'll stop and anchor on the east end of the canal near Delaware City.  All we do know is that we're happy to be done with the New Jersey coast for now, and hope that the weather gods will be playing elsewhere when we return back through here in the spring... :-)