First day of our trip from Stamford, Connecticut to Punta Gorda, Florida… well, actually we left Stamford, CT yesterday on 11/21 and cruised across Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay, NY returning my towboat to Oyster Bay. We needed to depart at 0400 to have a favorable current through East River and Hell Gate… that was a too early our normal end of season routine… Normally, we would leave from Stamford towing the towboat… Once out into Long Island Sound, Susan would take control of SAILS and I would jump on the towboat and run it to Oyster Bay….then Mitch (my employer) would run me back out to rendezvous with Susan on SAILS. So, we left yesterday and spent the night in Oyster Bay… this also enabled us to have dinner with Mitch and his wife Donna which is always a pleasure.

Gorgeous sunset as we crossed Long Island Sound with the New York City Skyline... :)

We departed this morning from Oyster Bay a bit later than planned at 0440 and headed out to Long Island Sound and west toward New York City. Even departing 40 minutes later than planned we still ran with a good boost from the current… hitting a top speed of 13 knots passing through Hell Gate. We carried the boost in speed well out of New York never dropping below 7 knots until well down the Jersey shoreline.

One whistle please... as we passed port to port with this gigantic container ship at the Verrazano Bridge exiting New York Harbor.

Of course as always the Jersey shore is filled with fishermen… this year seemed to be even more than normal and they all feel like they own the water and several of them would blowing their horns at us and waving us off when they felt we were too close to them.

Conditions offshore were not that bad… we had a west wind 15 to 20 knots and a southeast 4-6 foot swell but had a very long period…. Felt like you were being rocked in a cradle… and we hugged the shoreline eliminating any wave action from the west winds… the ride was not flat clam but very comfortable!

Arrived to our originally planned destination Manasquan at approximately 1400… made a command decision… continue to Atlantic City… another 7 hours or so but the sea state was pretty good… tomorrow could be horrible... ETA 2100.

We arrived to Atlantic City at 2110… winds had increased to steady 25 knots with gusts over 30 knots out of the WNW… We did nto notice any increase in wave height as we were heading into Atlantic City when this happened like someone turning a light switch on… We were securely docked at Gardner’s Basin at 2140. Our position tonight is N39°22.597', W074°25.264'. We traveled today for 17 hours covering 122.8 nautical miles averaging 7.2 knots.