Cape May to Atlantic City (and July 4th in Canfield) June 25th to July 5th, 2013

After a bit of indecision between Tour de Loop and us whether to head out into the Atlantic Ocean or not, we concluded the seas would be sufficiently favorable for the trip to Atlantic City, NJ.  A side bar—Hurricane Sandy did such devastation last year that the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway is still littered with cars, boats, parts of houses and various other sorts of debris making passage on the “inside” route still questionable.  Other “Loopers” have made the trip but not without incident.  Additionally, the sediment deposited by the storm has made very shallow routes that are impassible during anything but high tide, thus our decision to make our way north via the Ocean route.

Gardner's Basin, the Boardwalk and view of the Golden Nugget from our boat

An early morning departure took us out the Cape May inlet at 6:55 AM and our first experience with off shore passage.  The skies were clear, winds were southwest at 5-10 driving 1-2 foot seas mostly on our stern (a comfortable ride).  We set the autopilot to several points along our northeast route and traveled about 2-3 miles offshore for the entire trip.  We passed along many popular seaside resort communities like Wildwood, Stone Harbor, Sea Isle City and Ocean City giving us a much different perspective of beach revelers.  The clear skies made visibility up the coast seem nearly endless so we watched the skyline of the Atlantic City Boardwalk with its many casinos for hours before making our way into that inlet 6 ½ hours later.  We chose to moor Some R Lovin’ at Gardner’s Basin just inside the inlet at the city docks in the shadow of the City Aquarium and dozens of quaint shops and restaurants.  We were early enough to take a pass through a few casinos contributing to the economy of Atlantic City (we lost our shirts—no not really).  After dinner we started planning for our next leg to Manasquan, NJ about 40 miles up the coast.  Unfortunately, the weather turned ugly predicting 4-7 foot seas for the next 4-5 days.  So, our plans changed (a regular event in our boating life) and we decided to leave the boat in Atlantic City, rent a car and head home to Canfield for the 4^th holiday.

Breakfast at Neff and the Canfield Parade

The Reay's, Ruth, Sammy and Joey x 2

Traditions are important so Sandy’s pre-parade breakfast went on as usual except all our friends brought various dishes making it much easier on us to “host” the event.  Appetites sated, we all headed to Canfield’s Green to enjoy another hometown parade complete with bands, fire trucks, politicians, twirlers and the ever-present Shriners.  We left with bags full of candy that our grandkids collected and headed to BBQ #1 in Grove City to meet Dan’s Mother, Brother, Sister and their families.  After eating our fill of burgers and dogs and catching up on recent family news we headed back to Canfield to celebrate with the Thomas side of the family.  More burgers and dogs, but this time with fireworks to continue the 4^th’s celebration.  It seems every Mike, Joe and Chris buy more and bigger ways to make loud noises and illuminate the night sky.  What great fun!!  Sadly, our fun had to come to an end, as we needed to depart early on the 5^th to head back to Atlantic City to continue our trip north.  Just outside AC we re-provisioned, turned in our rental car and prepared for a second day on the ocean.  At the dock we were met by our Looper friends Tony and Shirley, on Headquarters, who had just made it into Atlantic City earlier that day. Our plan now included Headquarters and us on the ocean heading north.  It’s always comforting to travel with another boat when on “big water.”