TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We left Cape May, bright and early hoping for calm seas (as forecast) for our first outing on the Atlantic.  Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, and the winds and seas picked up a lot over the morning, which made for a very uncomfortable ride, pitching from side to side for hours.  By the time we were offshore of the casinos at Atlantic City (about 30 miles north of Cape May), we had no choice but to head in and tie up at a marina.  The ride in was something else: the waves got funneled in and built through the narrow inlet so Harmony was almost surfing the last mile.  We were very relieved to reach safe harbor. The following day was Dickie’s birthday so we made the best of it: that night we hit the Trump Taj Mahal Casino, just about broke even after a couple of hours gambling and found an Indian restaurant for dinner.  

The next day it was blowing 20 to 30 knots, too much to leave, but it was sunny so we had a great stroll along the boardwalk, breakfasted in a cafe wall-papered with dollar bills and had a lovely birthday lunch of leftovers on the boat; indian seems to taste even better the day after, and hotter too.  Later three chaps passed by our boat in their dinghy and stopped for a chat; they were on their way home to Maine and it turned out that we had crossed paths back in Ft Pierce, Florida, the site of our first break down, many moons ago.  They were musicians, and so we invited them aboard with their 2 guitars and a bottle of rum, and we had a great sing song until the wee small hours; the casino across the harbor was good enough to put on a light show too.  All in all a grand finale to Dickie’s birthday.