THE JOURNEYS OF TERRMAR IV: JUNE 15-16,2013- MANASQUAN, NJ

OUR PLAN

We are writing this blog for one reason and one reason only. To provide a vehicle to make it easier to remain in touch with our family and friends back home.

Our plan is simple. Depart our home port of Goderich, Ontario in the Summer of 2011. Cruise Georgian Bay and the North Channel of Lake Huron while visiting some of the ports and anchorages we have missed over the years. As well as revisiting some of our favourite haunts hopefully with some of our very good friends with whom we have cruised with many times before. All the while adding up the miles and gaining experience with our new trawler. Our first and only self imposed deadline is to be in the Chicago area around Labour Day. South of Chicago, weather and circumstances will guide us!

Friday, June 28, 2013

JUNE 15-16,2013- MANASQUAN, NJ

Oh gosh!! What have we done!! It is early morning of the “Cape May Shark Fishing Tournament” and we have found ourselves in the middle of a frantic exodus of sports fisher boats, from the Cape May inlet to the Atlantic!! Please pinch me and wake me from the horrible dream I am having called “The Attack of the Sports Fishers!” The colossal wakes are unbelievable and we hold our breath as another and still another boat speeds by, tossing us to and fro like a rubber duck in a bathtub! Thank God they are finally gone and we have made our way out to the Atlantic where we live to die another day!

We are then blessed with an ideal day on the Atlantic Ocean with a slight swell on the seas. So pleasant the ride, that we decide to go as far up the Jersey coast as we can in one day. The problem is all the available facilities are full up. Not all marinas had yet recovered from Hurricane Sandy from the year before. A second call to Hoffman’s Marina in Manasquan, NJ secured us docking for the night. Exhausted, we were grateful to be safely tied up, although it was the most rocking and rolling we had ever encountered during the entire great loop!

Another early morning after a noisy bumpy night! The fishermen were out and at it by 0500. Because we were moored on a T dock about 100’ from a railway bridge, a boat behind us and a three knot current against us meant undocking would be interesting. Actually after Terri and I and a dock hand worked out a plan things went smooth and very nautical if I do say so myself. Got to love those thrusters when they work! After a mini repeat of yesterday’s race to the inlet with only a few big wakes we turned our bow north and headed for the Big Apple. Yes New York here we come!

Mark & Terri