Long couple of days...
On thursday and friday I agreed to help a friend move his sailboat from the Delaware river to the Jersey Coast.
I boarded on wednesday night, since we were heading out at around 5:30 the next morning.
On thursday we made it to Cape May, had dinner and drinks at the Lobster House, then grabbed a few hours of shuteye. We got to sleep around 10:30 pm, and were on our way again by midnight.
We cruised through the night, heading up the coast. At one point while I was piloting my navigator got a litte confused about a 4 second red marker off in the distance, and sent us about 6 miles off the coast. I looked back and saw the perfectly full moon, with it's reflection chasing our transom through the swells.
Short moments of beauty like that were not to be experienced during the light of day however, because after approximately 4 hours at the helm, when the sun was just getting ready to peak out over the horizon, we got sacked by the thickest fog bank that I've ever seen south of new england.
Approaching Little Egg Harbor, all I saw was gray. We knew that there was a marker at the entrance to the harbor, but we also knew that it was a shifting soft sand inlet, which meant that the channel leading in changed from year to year as the sand shifted, our charts were useless.
Luckily the marker was a whistle, so we could hear it from about 800 yards or so. That was helpful, since in the fog, we only had about 30 yards of visibility. After relinquishing the helm, I got lookout duty. Standing on the bow and straining my eyes to see other boats, traps, breaking waves (which would mean we were straying into shallow waters).
Staring into complete seamless gray slate, your mind must fill in the blanks. From the depths emerge shapes, large shapes, lurking shapes. Always just outside of the range of vision, huge behemoths slip through the waters as vague masses.
Eventually I caught the vague sounds of the marker we were searching for. It took us almost an hour to find it.
We plotted a course that would bring us to the first chanel marker and started our approach. After following this course for a while, we stumbled on a small fishing boat, where they were kind enough to inform us that we were about 25 yards away from running aground, and that we needed to turn around immediattely.
After that, the owner decided to call Seatow on the vhs, and I decided to crash in one of the pilots berths for some much needed sleep.
A few hours later and we had been towed into the harbor by a professional, and all agreed after seeing the route in, that we were better for it. There was no way in hell that we would have gotten inot that harbor on our own in that fog.
On thursday and friday I agreed to help a friend move his sailboat from the Delaware river to the Jersey Coast.
I boarded on wednesday night, since we were heading out at around 5:30 the next morning.
On thursday we made it to Cape May, had dinner and drinks at the Lobster House, then grabbed a few hours of shuteye. We got to sleep around 10:30 pm, and were on our way again by midnight.
We cruised through the night, heading up the coast. At one point while I was piloting my navigator got a litte confused about a 4 second red marker off in the distance, and sent us about 6 miles off the coast. I looked back and saw the perfectly full moon, with it's reflection chasing our transom through the swells.
Short moments of beauty like that were not to be experienced during the light of day however, because after approximately 4 hours at the helm, when the sun was just getting ready to peak out over the horizon, we got sacked by the thickest fog bank that I've ever seen south of new england.
Approaching Little Egg Harbor, all I saw was gray. We knew that there was a marker at the entrance to the harbor, but we also knew that it was a shifting soft sand inlet, which meant that the channel leading in changed from year to year as the sand shifted, our charts were useless.
Luckily the marker was a whistle, so we could hear it from about 800 yards or so. That was helpful, since in the fog, we only had about 30 yards of visibility. After relinquishing the helm, I got lookout duty. Standing on the bow and straining my eyes to see other boats, traps, breaking waves (which would mean we were straying into shallow waters).
Staring into complete seamless gray slate, your mind must fill in the blanks. From the depths emerge shapes, large shapes, lurking shapes. Always just outside of the range of vision, huge behemoths slip through the waters as vague masses.
Eventually I caught the vague sounds of the marker we were searching for. It took us almost an hour to find it.
We plotted a course that would bring us to the first chanel marker and started our approach. After following this course for a while, we stumbled on a small fishing boat, where they were kind enough to inform us that we were about 25 yards away from running aground, and that we needed to turn around immediattely.
After that, the owner decided to call Seatow on the vhs, and I decided to crash in one of the pilots berths for some much needed sleep.
A few hours later and we had been towed into the harbor by a professional, and all agreed after seeing the route in, that we were better for it. There was no way in hell that we would have gotten inot that harbor on our own in that fog.