I just need to back up, I think.
When last I left you we were at anchor in Cape May, NJ. After our long sail over from Long Island we were eager for a break. After we anchored and sort of bathed, we started in on the daily topic of dinner (my favorite subject, next to breakfast, lunch, and snacks) and the refrain was typical. "What do you want to eat?" "I dunno, what do you want to eat?" Sounds familiar, right? Anyway, we decided to go out, because then we could get ice cream.
Now, I don't know about you, but I remember certain meals from my lifetime as exceptional. And, while many of them have been very fine meals at nice restaurants (my first dinner in Paris with my dad) or cooked by someone (probably my mom, you just can't beat your own mom's cooking), many of them are fairly ordinary meals eaten after a period of physical distress. For example, the cheese enchiladas I ordered in Tahoe City after 10 days on the Tahoe Rim Trail stand out with bold clarity from my memory (what is that magical quality that melting imbues on cheese? I've been considering that question a lot, lately). At any rate, we went to a little ice cream shop that also served food (typical of that kind of establishment) and I ordered the Texas Burger with a veggie patty (yay!) and it was freaking life-changing. All I've wanted to do since is cover things in BBQ sauce, grilled onions, pepperjack, and hot peppers. And all right, we clearly weren't in a state of deprivation or physical distress while making or long passage from NY, but something about being out of site of land in a 23 foot trimaran makes you really grateful for your next meal, believe me.
Anyway, after our dinner we got ice cream (duh), then picked up a bag of ice and waddled back to the boat. We crashed out cold and started the long process of getting caught up on sleep.
The next day we rented beach crusiers for $10 each for the whole day and explored Cape May. First we wandered downtown, then rode the 5 miles to the lighthouse. The lighthouse cost money to climb, unacceptable cost/reward ratio on a cruisers' budget, so we just wandered around looking at the migratory bird sanctuary that was in the surrounding acrage. There are a ton of osprey down there! In Essex there are these two osprey that nest behind Farnham's and it's such a big deal that they have a live-streaming website of the nest-cam. So when you get down further south and every single fixed channel marker has a big osprey nest on top of it you first get really excited, then sort of let down. It's like seeing bald eagles in Alaska. At first it's super cool and unique, and then you see two dozen of them roosting in a tree and say, "dammit, Bald Eagles, I want to be excited about each and every one of you and here you are being all common and hanging out in a tree." Well I didn't meant to talk about the osprey so much....
Anyway, we had a nice day exploring Cape May, then we got a late lunch, went grocery shopping, returned the cruisers, and walked back to the boat. We walked along the beach for most of it and there were hella dolphins. Seeing dolphins never gets less cool.
The next day we got up early to continue our journey south in search of warmer waters. We had great wind for the first couple hours, then it totally deserted us. We decided to just go slow and wait for it to pick back up, and while we waited I did a little fishing. We had dragged a line on occasion but hadn't yet caught anything. Well, that was about to change. I got a bite. While drinking a beer at a restaurant in Cape May we had dazedly watched some fishing program, so luckily I'd seen the proper way to reel in a fish. Sure enough, I reeled in a 16 inch blue fish. Huge. Anyway, I felt really bad for the fish and was actually sort of horrified and stricken, so Cody threw it back. He promised that the fish would be OK. All in all it was sort of traumatic.
Finally we realized we were actually going backwards, so we fired up the motor and just motored on our course for a while. We were low on fuel so we went in at Ocean City, NJ. Ocean City is described by the cruising guide as a "little Las Vegas." I think only someone who's never been to Vegas, or, for that matter, seen a picture of it, or watched NCIS Las Vegas, or even heard a remotely apt description, would describe Ocean City like that. Sure, there's some casinos and bigger hotels (by NJ shoreline standards), but it really stood out to me as a sort of run down fishing town. I live in a fishing town, and I never thought of it as particularly glamorous, but relative to the other fishing communities we've passed through Gloucester is freaking Paris. I've seen more old fishing vessels literally rusting back into the ocean in the last few weeks than I would have ever imagined. Like, why do they just leave them there?
We briefly considered staying in Ocean City for the night, but the concensus was that it "sucked". Trouble was, it was already mid-afternoon and the next inlet past Ocean City was another 30 miles south. And that would probably be 30 miles of listening to that damn outboard. Ugh. So we decided to go into the Chincoteague Bay. We'd probably be motoring, but at least we weren't commiting ourselves to 30 more miles of it.
Now, going from Ocean City into Chincoteague requires one to pass under a fixed bridge with a vertical clearance of 35 feet. In anticipation of possibly going this route we measured our mast and our drop to the water - 34.5 feet, not including our antenna, but providing clearance for our running light and windex. Breaths were held as we approached the bridge with the engine in neutral, ready to throw it into reverse at the last moment if something appeared too close for comfort. And, let me tell you, we made it under, antenna and all, with about 3 inches to spare (vertical clearance measurements are usually taken at high tide, so if it's low tide you have a little buffer). We breathed a collective sigh of relief and exchanged shaky high-fives as we passed through with our mast still erect.
Once into the bay we were able to raise our sails for an hour or so and skim over the shoals. We found a nice little bay (bay within a bay? yes) to tuck into for the night and cooked (I cooked) a nice dinner.
Okay, I know I'm super behind with the blog updates, so rather than write one huge long one that no one will read, I'm going to break it up. This is part 1. To be continued . . . .
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