We departed from Manasquan, NJ at 0830 hours and our plans were to travel to Atlantic City, NJ today. The forecast was for 10-15 knot winds out of the west and rain... the wind from the west would allow us to hug the coast and not have a lot of wave action. Well, that is what I had planned for... :)

We exited the inlet and things looked good... small rollers from the Southeast and the 10-15 knot winds were non existent... winds were 4-6 knots... BUT they were not coming out of the west as predicted... instead they were out of the south almost directly on our nose.

As the day progressed we started seeing other boats traveling south... most were larger SeaRay type cruiser moving along at a good pace... we did pass ne sailboat just before Barnegat Light Inlet... 25-26 foot... we heard them on the radio later asking about Barnegat Light Inlet... the winds had increased to the 10-15 knots as predicted but not out of the west... they were directly out of the south and they were helping the rollers to increase in size... soon we had 4-6 foot rollers... they had about a 6-7 second period which smoothed the ride slightly and we were not pounding as we had in Long Island Sound.

We had gone several miles past Barnegat Light Inlet when we heard the small sailing vessel we had passed hailing the Coast Guard... they were hailing for assistance and were in trouble in the inlet... we tried to listen to see what had happened but the communication between the Coast Guard and the small sailboat stopped... so not sure what happened... that's just a bad inlet to attempt in rough seas... hopefully, they were ok... never heard anything more about it.

The conditions continued to get worse and worse and soon the ride was uncomfortable. We still had about 3.5 hours to go and we continued on passing only fishing boats running what appeared to be nets.

As we approached Atlantic City the gray skies started to change to blue in front of and we could see the large casinos looming up into sky on the horizon. They appeared as if they were just moments away but we still had 10 miles to go... and at the speed we were making that was equating to 1.5 hours... :(

At approximately 1720 hours we were safely docked at the City docks adjacent to the Aquarium in Atlantic City, NJ. We had traveled for 8 hours and 50 minutes covering 53.0 nautical miles averaging 6.0 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 251.6 nautical miles
Hours: 40 hours 21 minutes
Avg Spd: 6.23 knots