Cape May - at Utsch's Marina

The first of two "55 ft"  bridges on the Cape May canal

We had fully intended staying in Atlantic City until Saturday morning but we happened to look at the latest forecast around 9:00 am. The forecast went from 10 to 15 on the nose with 20 kt gusts to only 10 or less kts of wind. PocketGrib and SwellInfo were in agreement but the NOAA coastal forecast was still out to lunch.We put our faith in grib and were not disappointed. The wind was still on the nose but at 10 kts or less, it was no problem. The wind wasn't strong enough to build up the type of waves that cause pounding heading into them. In fact, the wind shifted eastward just enough to put wind in the sails for a little stability, we were quite comfortable. It pays to always look at the latest forecast.

So we made it to Cape May and now we'll sit for awhile to get good weather and current for a run up the bay. We would always rather go through the Cap May canal but that requires a low tide for us and the low tides are all in the afternoon for the next several days. You might consider going around the outside but then the current up the bay doesn't start until the afternoon anyway. With that we'll wait a few days for better weather and more favorable tides.

58 ft at low tide

Meanwhile I took a walk over to look at the first bridge on the canal. It's a short walk from Utsch's Marina.; You can see from the photo that there's no way the bridge has 55 ft of clearance at high tide. Today's tide was 5.5 ft so it is higher than normal. If you're familiar with the Cape Cod height formula in the 2016 ICW Cruising Guide then you know that the starting point for bridge clearance is 58 ft figured at low tide. With today's 5.5 ft of high tide, that works out pretty well (52.5 + 5.5 = 58). We will time our passage at near low tide for our 55 ft 3 in of mast.

Our home for the next few days

My list of boat projects has grown over the last few days to include fixing a leak at the bow into the forward cabin (when waves crash over the bow), head work (ugh...), fixing the VHF which decided to stop working today, replacing the handheld (doesn't  receive anymore, transmits fine), fix TV antenna which somehow loses the signal, clean boat of all the salt, and about a dozen other smaller items. Cruising is not a vacation, it's just living on a boat instead of a house but it is a lot more fun!