Atlantic Highlands N.J.

Moonbeam
David and Lynn Wilkie
Mon 13 Jun 2011 01:31

 

 

40.25.091N  74.01.899W

 

In the morning the fog had lifted and we left the inlet at 0600, encountering one fishing boat in the entrance channel still with her outriggers and paravanes out!

 

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The Sunday forecast had been for reasonable southerly breeze but of course it was not to be and we had light easterlies which gave us a reasonable motorsail on course North. The only ‘good’ anchorage en route is at Atlantic City as the others are fairly shallow and treacherous without local knowledge. As the Monday forecast was dubious we decided to push on and breathed a sigh of relief when a severe thunderstorm headed astern of us with its associated hail and wind gusts.

We entered the shipping channel at Sandy Hook just before midnight and with a contrary tide and dodging tankers and tugs in the channel we picked up a mooring in the harbour at Atlantic Highlands about 0130 on Monday morning, 122 miles from Cape May.

 

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Moorings with launch service and Moonbeam in the background

 

 

The trip had been rather boring in limited visibility and the cockpit thermometer was reading 22degrees C in mid-afternoon when 2 days previously it had been 50!; we had spent most of the day in oilskins! Even in the dark we could see the lights of New York and Manhattan less than 20 miles away; we had come 1800 miles in a straight line from Bequia but logged 2798 miles getting here in a longer distance than the transatlantic trip!

 

Total of 8643 nautical miles since we left Argyll.