Bridges, Flies and More on the NJICW

Today was a “3 bridge an hour” day for us. We encountered our first bridge very early. Bob was still cleaning the mud off the anchor and chain, when we came around a bend and the bridge was right in front of us. Sue was at the helm and we only had to wait about 5 minutes and were through by 7:10am. The first picture shows the Dorset Ave Bridge after we’d passed through it. Vacation homes line the ICW in this section.

The second bridge opened for us quickly and we were through another bridge by 7:30am. Our last bridge of the day was a railroad bridge and a train was approaching, so we had a 20 minute wait and then were given an opening at 8am.

Coming around Atlantic City, we caught sight of this wind farm. What a terrific way to generate power. We’ve never understood people’s objections to having to live near them. They’re beautiful, clean and after the initial investment, free!

The skyline of Atlantic City after passing the Absecon Inlet

We’ve had trouble with horse flies the last several days, but today was the worst. They covered the windows, the sliding door and underneath our stair cover. Several were able to sneak in the salon area and believe me, they’re good biters!

Today was a fairly short day for us: only 23nm and a 4.6 hour day. We pulled into Beach Haven, NJ and fueled up again., We really didn’t need fuel, but the price was right and we’d heard that closer to NYC, prices are over $5/gallon. We managed to squeeze 25 gallons in the tanks at $4.309/gallon, plus the marina has free pump-outs.

TOM-KAT is docked at the end of this pier. We walk down through the fishing boats and all their rigging to our slip. The view from TOM-KAT’s cockpit of Little Egg Harbor. This is a fairly large body of water especially after the little channels we’ve been negotiatating the past two days.

We had lunch and then went into town for a few groceries at Murphy’s, before starting some boat chores. I took off for the marina laundry and Bob did some detective work on our Flo-Scan meter that is giving erratic readings. (Flo-Scan measures our fuel consumption)

Beach Haven is on a narrow barrier island called Long Beach Island and is only 6 blocks wide, so before dinner we took a stroll down to see the beach and the ocean. The wind had picked up this afternoon and it looks like it has kicked up some waves on the Atlantic.

The staff at the marina had recommended Tuckers for dinner, so we stopped on our way back to the boat. It was a popular place with lots of extended families celebrating birthdays and vacations together.

The Crystal Queen paddlewheel boat cruises past the marina.

Once back at the boat, we emptied containers from the bilge, so Bob could have a closer look at the Flo-Scan transducer. He cleaned some connections and found one wire that was loose, plus stopped a leak in a fitting. Tomorrow we’ll have to watch the meter again and see if any of these fixes has helped.

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