What We Dodged Today…

Time to get out of Dodge. Well, really New Jersey. In this part of the world and I imagine most parts of the world tides and currents have to be dealt with. Trying to figure it out is like celestial navigation except not as precise. I purchased a book listing the tides and currents for the east coast. It is a book of tables and small print. And it is a book of suppositions about currents. To keep its bulk down the tables refer to other unrelated tables. There are many abbreviations, footnotes, and confusing relationships between data points.

It reminds me of nephrology. I can understand it if I squint and read every word and not let one thing I do not understand pass until I understand it. We have not found a local, or longtime cruiser for that matter that feels comfortable predicting the current. Today we got to our destination — Manasquan Inlet — at precisely the wrong time. The tide was at its high point and current was running out like gangbusters.

Let me backtrack. We pulled out of Jersey City, NJ with the current in our favor. The Hudson narrows here and in fact, the Verrazano Bridge is called The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. When a big tidal river like the Hudson narrows in the vicinity of lower Manhattan; Ellis Island; the Statue of Liberty; a major sea port with the tugs, tows, anchored barges, and moving tankers, car carriers, and bulkers; and add to this the local ships, water taxis, and ferries; not to mention the various security agencies and the local fisherman it creates maelstrom of activity. I could keep adding to the list but it is making me dizzy.

The above craziness ended as Carrie Rose passed between two incoming ships: a car carrier and a tanker. I am not sure how we ended up in the middle of the eighth largest suspension bridge with a fully loaded tanker from Liverpool and a behemoth car carrier from who knows where on either side, but it worked.

Now the Hudson opens up wide. The channel markers fan out into the distant Atlantic Ocean. We had decided to take a sharp right and head for Great Kills harbor to wait out the rough weather. It seemed like we would be there for a week according to NOAA weather radio.

I listened repeatedly for a glimmer of hope. No such luck, except maybe today. There were Small Craft Warnings, still it did not sound that bad. It was early in the day. We decided to go have a look, so I turned CR’s bow away from the land and for the first time towards the ocean.

As it turned out, just going to look turned into just keep going. Carrie Rose headed south around the Sandy Hook light and down the coast of New Jersey. Neither of us had anticipated this, so no route existed in the iPad or MacBook Air, our main navigational aids. We scrambled to enter the appropriate waypoints and in the process discovered that our destination was close to 50 miles away.

Northeast winds are the bane of Chicago’s boating world and it is the same here. The only difference is in Chicago the fetch is measured in hundreds of miles and here in thousands. The wind freshened and the waves grew. It is hard to estimate their size. The radio said two to fours. All I can tell you that CR was lifted and surfed down them close to 14 mph. Not scary, nerve racking is a better term. CR has been in worse on the Great Lakes, but there was something different about these.

They came out of the NE, which was good. CR does well with waves on her stern quarter. Then they morphed into an odd combination of NE and East. I turned off the autopilot and took over the helm. I can steer a straighter thus more comfortable course and I can take advantage of the following sea to speed us along. To my right I saw a large powerboat skimming the shore disappear into the inlet. It confirmed the point on my chart. I headed for it.

Inlets are odd places. They are places of abrupt change. In this case, the bigger seas of the ocean are broken up into small pieces creating a chaotic mess. Though this is a large inlet, it was hard to make out until almost upon it. I could see two distinct jetties on the radar so I knew it existed, and then I saw the red and green lights that mark their ends: chaos on the outside, smooth as glass on the inside. CR has 220 horsepower. I used them. With the throttle down, we cut through the maelstrom and into the smooth channel.

Now you have to remember we have never been here before. We have no local knowledge other than what we have gleaned from cruising guides. And since I was busy driving, Charlotte was busy (when not holding on) trying to gather data. I knew she was on the phone and then she said in a confident voice, “We are going to the Hoffman’s Marina gas dock and it is before the bridge”.

I saw the bridge nearby. My mistake was to relax for 30 seconds and in those precious seconds; I failed to realize the strength of the current. As is usual for any crowded confined place on the water, there were fishing boats, some quite large, drifting with the current. I hit the autopilot button, grabbed my binoculars, and started to look for the gas dock. Saw it and two men who were waving me off.

Looking down at my depth sounded it read 3.0 feet…not good. More power, I turned into the channel, saw and felt the current rushing in along the dock. One does not come into a dock riding with the current. One turns into it and so I did with the urgings of the dock master. The problem here was the current was also pushing me into the dock. I knew that if I did not do something quickly CR would miss the dock and be swept into a narrow channel lined with large sport fishing boats.

My first response was to reverse to give me some room to maneuver but with the weird current, it did not work as expected. Again, CR’s power came in handy. Throttle down for the second time, she came around and hovered off the dock as she slowly moved towards it. Then we were docked. This was a good stress test for my 60+ year old heart.

The rest of the story involves Larry the dock master and owner of the marina guiding CR into the slip next to the gas dock using lines and me at the helm to slow the progress of CR getting swept away with the current. Once tied to the various piers, a complicated task in itself, I turned the engine off and calm reappeared.

It had been five hours since we left New Jersey expecting to travel 15 miles to a quiet backwater and ending up in the middle of New Jersey vacationland in a busy marina next to the gas dock with an even busier channel next to it. And that bridge is for the New Jersey commuter railroad into Manhattan. It opens and closed all day announcing its intention with a siren. And did I mention the Marina’s restaurant in earshot, which had a live band playing the best of wedding music circa 1970 long into the night. Oh and the flood light on the fuel dock sending sunlight over CR.

None of it mattered. We started down the coast and ended up in a beautiful if noisy place, and now can ride the tides stationary while contemplating what to do next with our lives.