Day 291
We got up early on Monday morning, 06/28/21, to help Bella Vita leave her slip at South Jersey Marina in Cape May, at 6:15 am, and then left our slip aboard Legacy shortly afterward, right at slack tide, which is the easiest, most stress-free time to leave or enter an ocean side marina. Bella Vita and Legacy were buddy boats for this outside crossing to Golden Nugget Marina in Atlantic City, NJ. As we progressed toward the east-northeast, the morning sun was RIGHT in our eyes. Fortunately that sun didn’t take long to rise above the top of the flybridge and out of our line of sight, so we could actually see where we were going.
We traveled out in the Atlantic Ocean, where the winds were higher. The seas were relatively smooth that morning, with minimal wave-heights, but the swells made our ride rolly. The winds were supposed to be higher today than we prefer for cruising “outside”, but we hoped not too bad. Just in case, I’d already taken a Dramamine that morning before we left. Since Legacy’s flybridge sits up so high (which only magnifies the rolling), we knew we could always move down to the salon helm for a slightly smoother ride, if conditions became too rough.
Following Bella Vita, which was cruising about 300 yards ahead of us, and to our port (since they were cruising closer to shore), we passed Wildwood, Stone Harbor, and Avalon, NJ, to our west. Although we could see beach house after beach house along the distant NJ shore, we were traveling much too far out for me to get any decent pictures.
We passed Sea Isle City, Strathmore, and Ocean City, NJ, before we came to the inlet into Egg Harbor Bay and Longport, NJ. As we slowly progressed, we could just barely make out the skyline of Atlantic City, far up ahead to our northwest. At 10 am, the winds began to pickup and we began seeing white-caps here and there. Our plan (and sincere hope) was to reach today’s destination before those winds increased to gusty later on in the day. We wanted to be safely tied in our slip at the Golden Nugget Marina long before then.
We passed Margate City and Ventnor City, NJ, before reaching Atlantic City, which loomed ahead of us in the haze. Bella Vita arrived first, and we heard them calling to the marina on radio channel 16 for docking instructions. Soon, it was our turn to receive our instructions, get into our slip, and tied-up. I had managed to stay feeling fairly well, but could feel some seasickness coming on (even with the Dramamine I’d taken), so it was a good thing we arrived when we did! I felt a little off of my game for the remainder of that day, but Brandee graciously shared some of their seasickness remedies of ginger gum and ginger beer with me, which helped. 🙂
Position: N 39° 22.657, W 74° 25.608
Distance traveled: 45 SM
Total distance traveled: 4151 SM
Total marina nights: 265
Total nights at anchor: 23
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 28