I am reading a book about the 1996/97 Vendee Globe race, “Godforsaken Sea.” The race is the most extreme, single handed, race there is. It’s the Everest of sailing. Basically it’s a circumnavigation of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean. The men and women who sailed that race are a different breed of human.
I know that the NJ coast is a cake walk compared to the Southern Ocean but for us it’s the most stressful part of the trip. On one side is the wide open North Atlantic. The other side is a barren looking coast with a few dangerous inlets to enter for refuge from the sea. Ok, New Jersey isn’t barren by a long shot but it looks that way from a few miles out. Since our journey has only just begun our sailing muscles are out of shape. We’re both sleep deprived. The days are short and we have to make a lot of miles between stops. I’m in a rush before the next batch of bad weather rolls up the coast.
Shore leave in Port Washington was very relaxing. This portion of our adventure is not. The other night I dumped a shot of tequila in the sea. This was to share a drink with Neptune so he might send me some good wind and flat seas. For some reason we seem to be sailing/ motoring upwind regardless of forecasts or what direction we are going.
September 27th- Atlantic Highlands to Barnegat Bay, NJ
Up before first light. Ollie to shore. The night before we worked out a method of hauling our dinghy up on Evergreen’s foredeck with a block and tackle, then tied her down, and proceeded to hoiste anchor. I had much difficulty extracting the anchor. We managed to get the anchor close to the surface. It was hooked on an abandoned chain which was obviously attached to something else. I was able to dislodge our anchor with a long boat hook. ONWARD!
The wind was forecast to be west. It veered south west shortly after rounding Sandy Hook. An East wind or a South wind will tend to create problems for transiting the NJ coast. Eventually the wind increased in velocity. We pounded into the wind and waves all day with Evergreen’s diesel.
The entrance to Barnegat Bay is shallow and can have breaking waves in the rocky inlet. Today it did. I surfed Evergreen over the waves. We almost broached (dangerous forced sideways turn). We almost slammed into the bottom between waves with just inches under the keel. In the end we got in and had a quiet evening. The Captain had some tequila and shared with Neptune.
September 28th- Barnegat Bay to Cape May, NJ
Up before first light. Ollie to shore. Barnegat has a really nice beach. Hoist dinghy on deck. We get to the inlet again where there are, thankfully, no breaking waves this morning. There is a heavy tidal current going against us. I push our diesel up to 3000rpms to get through it. The engine RPMs start to drop. The engine then almost rattles to a complete shutdown. Rocks and shallow water are everywhere. Shortly, before I had an anureism, the RPMs shot back up to 3000 and we drove through the current. My theory is, during yesterday’s violent entrance to the inlet, we sucked some air into a fuel line. Some engines would just shut down completely. Yanmar makes a good engine.
We actually had some great sailing in the morning. Evergreen soared with her full genoa out and a reefed main. The west wind helped us along for the first part of the day. Unfortunately the predicted northwest wind never came out in the latter half of the day and the wind changed to west southwest. The diesel ran well for the remainder of the day as did the autopilot. We traversed 62 nm and made it in to Cape May before dark.
Barnegat Light just after sunrise.
