First day of our trip from Stamford, Connecticut to Savannah, GA... well, actually we left Stamford, CT yesterday on 11/30 and cruised across Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay, NY... towing my towboat back to Oyster Bay and afterwards having dinner with Mitch and Donna Kramer which is always a pleasure.

We planned to depart from Oyster Bay at 0400 in order to transit the East River and Hell Gate with a favorable current.... However, we ran a little late and did not get away from the dock until 0420... The early departure time was to have a favorable current through the East River, Hell Gate and out NY Harbor to the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived at Hell Gate just after peak ebb tide and had a 4 knot current pushing us along... saw a maximum of 11.7 knots.

We passed under the Verrazano Bridge and into the Atlantic to find calm seas... virtually flat calm... it was awesome. Forecast was for seas 2 foot or less so was expecting some type of wave or swell... but we had nothing.

The Jersey shore was the same... filled with fishing boats from small center consoles to 100-foot charter boats. I steered to go around the congested areas to avoid any confrontations with the fishermen... they are a bit territorial and get really upset when you pass close to them.

Over the summer I added a VHF radio to SAILS. My old VHF was still working but the microphone cord was in poor shape... spliced a few times to keep it working... anyway, installed a Simrad RS35... has a wireless remote mic/control and AIS receiver. I also installed a new Brookhouse iMuxST WiFi multiplexer. It broadcasts all the NMEA data over a WiFI signal. Before this I had my laptop connected via serial cable. With this update I now have AIS data showing up on the laptop’s Coastal Explorer charts.... VERY COOL! I had never really experienced AIS before this... now I’m really thinking about adding a full AIS transmit and receive.

We arrived to Atlantic City and were securely docked at Gardner’s Basin at 2100. Our position tonight is N39°22.580', W074°25.276'. We traveled today for 16 hours and 40 minutes covering 122.2 nautical miles averaging 7.3 knots.

We had a great dinner at the Shrimp Box Restaurant... had remembered it as not being that great but was really good this time... Shrimp and Grits and a nice salad bar.... YUMMY!

Overnight there was still a large ocean swell that was causing a surge effect in the basin... SAILS was rocking gently like a baby's cradle... s good night sleep.

Up well before sunrise and underway at 0615 in the depths of some thick fog... 1/8 mile visibility in the basin and half that or worse once we cleared the inlet and heading north along the New Jersey shoreline. Seas were still quite large with a shorter 4 to 6 foot SE swell... was not the best ride but better than it had been offshore from Cape May to Atlantic City. We had about 4 hours to ride this until we reached Sandy Hook and turned toward New York Harbor.

We had fog all the way to New York City... was very different trip this time with the fog as normally you can see the city skyline for hours as you approach New York... today nothing but gray fog.

We missed the timing with current today having a tremendous current against us for most of the day. The East River and Hell Gate were the worst areas fighting a 4.5 knot current... dropping our speed to less than 2 knots a few times. The water just boiling in Hell Gate. We did a reprieve once we reached the Throgs Neck Bridge and Long Island Sound the turning point in the current and we had the current pushing us along at over 8 knots all the way to Stamford.

We arrived to Stamford at dead low tide... a problem for us getting into our slip at Seaview House Marina. The slip is deep enough for us but there is a hump just outside the slip. I attempted to get in but there was just not enough water and we stopped dead about 50 feet from the slip... backed out and docked on dock in front of our slip at 1815.

A couple of hours later we had enough water so we moved to our normal slip 41°02.342'N,73°31.318'W. We traveled today for 12 hours covering 71.8 nautical miles averaging 5.98 knots.

Up at 0600 and underway at 0645... cold and windy... we could hear the surf crashing on the beach nearly a mile away so we decided to stay inside and not venture out into the Atlantic. Forecast is in a settling trend getting better and better each day so a day inside should will give things more time to settle down in the Atlantic.

About 30 minutes after getting underway the sky opened up and it started raining... which continued for the majority of the day... so it not only cold and windy... it was also raining... a perfect day to cruise.

Inside route is shallow... most of the day we were running just above idle.. with the depth sounder not even registering a depth... depth sounder stops registering at about 5.3 feet... we typically were in water from 5.3 to 7 feet... a few places we did see some deeper water and were able to run at normal speed and we had an incoming tide that was boosting our speed a little. But basically, it was a cold, rainy and slow moving day.

Had several bridges to deal with... all luckily only needing us to drop out VHF antennas to clear... except at Manasquan... the railroad bridge that is normally open was closed... had to hail it on the VHF several times before finally getting a reply to keep approaching... it slowly opened... very very slowly and we had current against us at this point. Very narrow opening and with current against us made passing through a bit hairy but we made it without issue.

We talked about continuing on to New York and thought we would venture out the inlet to see what conditions were like... when the inlet came into view or I should say "not in view" we opted to stop as we originally planned... the inlet was fogged in with pea soup thick fog... not going to deal with fog and rough seas... :)

So as we reached the inlet, we turned to starboard and headed to our destination for the night... Shrimp Box Restaurant. We were docked at the Shrimp Box restaurant docks at 1645... Location 40°06.111'N,74°02.260'W. We traveled today for 10 hours covering 56.54 nautical miles averaging 5.65 knots.