Oh my, oh my!!  We are leaving Cape May, NJ and going into the Atlantic Ocean!!  We have gone across the Okeechobee.  We have driven up the Chesapeake Bay, down the Delaware Bay, and the ICW.  They all pale to the ocean.  Now we are going to drive our Always Home into the Atlantic Ocean!!  Mind blowing!!  We are excited and scared all at the same time.  Now this is big water!!

Our day began with high hopes of calm waters and southerly winds.  The sunrise was very promising.  The sun was red just like last night.  I will need to figure out why my camera mutes the reds.  It was very pretty.

Sunrise in Cape May 6am June 10, 2015

As I had previously mentioned, there were at least 6 of us “Loopers” getting ready to leave today.  Folks bustling around putting things away so they wouldn’t go flying into the ocean, disconnecting the power cords, and pulling in the lines ( ropes).  We backed up, pivoted, and left the marina one after the other.  Not like we were in a hurry….but glad to be moving!

Leaving our slip #16…after 11 days

Exiting the marina main waterway

Goodbye Utsch’s Marina

We slowly left the marina taking care of the shallow waters.  As I was pulling in the fenders, I saw several more boats following in our track.  Almost like kids on the last day of school!  We couldn’t get out on the water fast enough.

Several Boats all in a row following us out.

There is an ICW channel in New Jersey.  But not for our boat.  The channel is very shallow and in not recommended for any boat with a draft of over 4 ft.  It is also tedious with bends, curves, bridges and no wake zones.  We really had no choice but to go out into the great BLUE Atlantic!  We know several small Looper boats did actually go up the NJ ICW  during the high winds expecting the land and marshes to dampen the wind gusts somewhat.

Turn left under the bridge to the NJ ICW channel

We saw a fishing trawler up ahead.  They must know how to get to the ocean, right?  Let them lead us!!  I don’t know what the early morning tow boats were pulling / pushing so early in the morning.  They were coming into Cape May.  Hope they don’t get stuck for 11 days!

We are officially in the Atlantic Ocean!!  7:15am June 10, 2015.  Look at the water!  Pretty flat, if you ask me.  I expected something different.  This is an ocean!  More violent, more white caps.  Wait… isn’t that why we waited for 11 days?  Not to have that frothy water? Beautiful!

3 other trawlers going our way

I went down to the galley ( kitchen) to make some sandwiches for breakfast.  Bad idea.  The roll of this water is different than the other waters.  OR because I got hot.  OR because I didn’t have anything to do … as navigator and spotter, there was just the coast line to follow.  We couldn’t make a wrong turn.  I got nauseous.  Not pukey sick but I need cool air and some ginger ale… quick!!  Actually, quite fascinating since we have been in rolling water before and I hadn’t gotten sick then.

Otherwise, nothing much was going on.  Water on the right.  Land off to the left.  3 boats behind us, a few sail boats ahead of us, and no one else, really.  No traffic jams.  No cars or boats honking.  Just the quiet roar of our twin engines and the wind between my ears.  Awesome!

One of the amazing things about boating is that it takes so long to travel.  We saw the Atlantic City skyline for more than an hour before we actually got close enough to check our entrance to the marina.  The other boaters moved on.  We decided to make it a short day today of about 50 miles.

Atlantic City far off – 10 am

11am Atlantic City skyline

We are staying at the Farley marina at the Golden Nugget Casino.

Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, NJ

The Golden Nugget is at the red arrow on the map below.  It is NOT near the Atlantic City board walk.  We have visited Atlantic City a few years ago and found no reason to visit it again this trip.

We were really early for us to dock and had our choice of slips.  We rested for about an hour and decided to go find those infamous buffets we keep hearing about for our big meal of the day.  We found it!  Oh my… the desserts were first on the table.  Bread pudding and cheese cake.  Ok, we did eat other food, but we all know always eat dessert first!  Right?

These glass displays look very nice.

Golden Nugget Entrance Glass

We aren’t gamblers but we did walk around the casino.  Two tables playing in the poker room.  Several black jack tables of all kinds going on.  Roulette being played both with a person throwing the little metal ball and with a computer shooting out the ball like a pinball game.  We found the penny slots but it looked like we needed a card to play rather than an actual coin.

To get in our walk for the day, we walked around the marina.  We found a fish cleaning station with an adorable sign.

Do not feed the cats!! – No pelicans here??

Do AC!!

Night Lights in AC

Todays travel on the high seas went really well.  Tomorrow, we will do a longer leg from Atlantic City to Great Kills, NY.  That will be a 100 mile day.  Doable.  We will just have to get up early and go for it!