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| The Hudson River is surrounded by mountains on either side, beautiful |
Well, we're off "as we're leaving and headed south" not a little off as many have suspected for years.The trip down the New Jersey coast is the most unpredictable of all the passages for us. We stay within three miles of the coast but the weather can still change abruptly and it's rarely predictable. We follow five weather sources:
PocketGrib,
SwellInfo,
Huricane Tracker,
NOAA Marine Forecasts and
StormSurf predictions for surf height along the coast. We compare all the predictions and make a decision. We desire a smooth ride down the New Jersey coast with the wind at our backs and waves less than 2 ft. Generally, we've found that PocketGrib gives the most dependable predictons with StormSurf close behind. The NOAA Marine Forecasts tend to predict worse conditions than we encounter within three miles of the coast. Of course, we always look at the latest hurricane status.
So putting all of this together we had first thought of a Tuesday trip down the coast, then changed that to Wednesday and then changed that back to Tuesday - the weather is rather variable. By the time we decided on Tuesday we had to hurry up to get on the boat for the first leg of the trip to Haverstraw Cove where we're anchored tonight.
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| Why wouldn't you want a nice, peaceful anchorage at night? |
For those traveling down the Hudson River, I'm amazed that this anchorage is not more popular. It's protected 360 from winds and waves. It doesn't show any depth soundings on the charts and there's a warning about an obstruction at the entrance and I suppose that scares a lot of people away. Regardless, all hazards can be avoided just by following my waypoints posted on the blog (see GPX Routes). Today we came in and found 6.4 MLW as the lowest point before the depths deepened farther into the anchorage. The typical depth is 20 to 30 ft throughout the anchoage although we generally anchor in the south cove where we find 10 to 15 ft. Just follow the waypoints faithfully and you'll have no problem.
We're headed for Atlantic Highlands on Monday as a staging point for our trip down the coast on Tuesday if the weather holds.
2 comments:
That is a sweet, short window you are tucking into to travel the coast! Do you ever look at fishweather?
Mary, it's shorter than I'd like but I'll take it. If the front speeds up, it won't be nice. I tried loading fishweather tonight but it kept going around in circles. I'll,try again tomorrow. There are a bunch of us in the anchorage tonight (dozen...). I guess we all have the same idea. However, there's lots of room, no crowding.
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