Castawayll Great Loop: June 19, 2014 Thursday Leaving Cape May, New Jersey this morning

Slept in this morning with air conditioner keeping us cool during the night until the wind started blowing and it started raining and lightening, no bad thunder like before, just a little shower. I even had a dream, don't remember what but that is unusual for me to have dreams, I sleep so hard. Woke up to the big fishing boat rolling the cart out to his boat, ready to take wantabe deep sea fisherman out for the day. Creepy guys, just staring at us, me, on our boat. We left shortly after they did, had to get gas and water and pay our bill. Not the best of Marinas, public bathroom, slip on floating dock 3 ft or less but we were tied up to the dock during the blow last night and electricity for the air conditioner, it was in the high 90's yest. With the bridges fixed at 35 ft. we need to go out on the ocean today to Atlantic City. Forecast for weather not real good today. North to Northeast winds this afternoon with thunderstorms and rain early this morning and later afternoon. Winds this morning 5 knots from the northwest switching to the north and northeast later afternoon. Well let me tell you, the weatherman was off part of the day anyway. This morning getting out of the Cape May Inlet at 9:30 we had partly cloudy, sunny in the east with darker blue clouds in the west. Going out the inlet the tide was coming in making for a rough exit, in addition the rudder kept popping up and was very difficult to steer the boat. Curt tried putting it down but wouldn't stay down, big boat coming out behind us so we motored out of the opening into the ocean and let the boat go by then stopped to let Curt fix the rudder, found the cable had somehow wrapped around a place it is not supposed to be. After Curt found that and corrected it, we started once again with the rudder staying down this time. Put up the jib, great discussions of weather to put up the mainsail. I won this time, sailing with just the jib since winds predicted to change. The swells were about 8 seconds apart, comfortable with west winds, according to Curt's new wind gadget they were out of the NW at 20 kts gusting to 25 kts. which seemed like it. Comfortable. Cruising along thinking this isn't bad, maybe we can get to Atlantic City before the storms and NE winds hit. At 11:30 we had gone 10 miles, listened to the weather again because the wind had changed to the N and waves were getting higher along with closer swells. Weatherman said rain at noon with winds increasing from the NE. Well at exactly noon it started blowing from the NE, waves higher, we were pounding and had to cut the waves by going North instead of NE and started to rain. 2pm We decided to turn back and go into the edgy, shallow waters at Townshed Inlet.after watching two other bigger boats go in it on our way there. Amazing how calm it was when we turned and had following winds, riding up and down the now 5-6 ft waves we edged our way to the inlet. Crossed over a shallow area with our depth meter not reading meaning less than 3 ft. But with the tide up, we hoped we would get more than the 3-6 ft depth as the charts showed. I held my breath, I'm driving again in crappy conditions, Curt's watching the GPS and telling me which way to go, we headed for the red buoy, red right returning. I started to breathe again when the depth meter started showing 5 ft then 7 ft, then 8 feet. Then my next thought is how are we going to turn into the marked channel with the 6 ft waves coming at our starboard side. Crap, Curt says just turn the wheel, we wallowed down the channel, with the tide pouring out at least 2-3kts, which made it even rougher and swirling. Curt called the bridgetender to open the bridge, hoping he would get it open before we got there. Then we saw the narrow channel under the lift bridge, nervously I approached with Curt giving his opinion on how to get thru it, the bridge started going up on one side, but didn't open straight up so I had to go closer to the opposite side which I wasn't to keen on, since I wanted lots of room on both sides to twist and turn if the current and wind caught me. Whew, made it thru turned to the south and calm water, quiet winds, another world. Carefully made it up the spotted shallow waters to the Avalon Marina, $2.00/ft, ouch but safe since the dark clouds are building to the northwest again and prediction for storms tonight. Oh well, at least they have a shower, sort of, warm water and electricity with floating docks but the current is super fast and Wifi that sort of works. Should be interesting getting out of the slip in the morning. Had a very quiet relaxed night except for the no see ums biting. 2 hrs. to make 10 miles today and afternoon 3 hours to make 5 miles. Got the fly splats washed off the boat from the Delaware Bay crossing. This is one of the barrier islands but the marina is a long ways from anything so no sight seeing tonight. As the evening went on the sun came out, storms seemed to bypass us and go south and looking out the inlet from a distance, the ocean looked calm. Oh well, we needed a night to take a break from the adventure.