(continuing from Journal entry: July 6; day 4 Charleston to Atlantic City)

The following morning on the sunrise watch, the air remains thick and heavy. I remember the same passing New Jersey last time on our delivery with Bloodhound – I  also remember the countless balloons in the ocean. Everything is wet and dripping with water, the boat seems to be carrying dirt from the air. The seas are oddly calm but we are making way nicely. A few hours later the winds start to increase, as well as the seas. A system has developed and it gets uncomfortable quick as we’re close hauled with a reefed genoa, main and storm stays’l. The motion and seas aren’t agreeable so we make the decision to seek refuge and head downwind 40nm directly west to Atlantic City. We are moving swiftly in the 25kts behind us, the air still heavy as it’s becoming difficult to see in the dense rain and fog. 

We know we’re in a heavy commercial traffic area. The radar screen is completely red from the rain. It’s hard to see very far, the next thing we see is a container ship we missed picking up on our AIS. It’s close and the conditions aren’t good. We hail on VHF16 repeatedly but get nothing. It’s concerning and we would like to know if the ship will be maintaining course. We have little choices in direction with the sea conditions and our downwind rig. The ship passes to our port without noticing us, the next issue is his wake. It’s a few moments later that we face the huge swell left behind and our bow noses up the crest of the wave, and deep dives straight down into it. Ben is at the helm, drenched and taking what control he can without gybing and keeping us adjacent to the wave. I brace myself in the companionway as Caprivi’s front half is completely submerged underwater. There’s no time to think, but an image of our new cabinets breaking apart goes through my mind – the least of our issues. We hold strong, Ben gets dumped with water in the cockpit. We handle the following waves, all is okay but we are pissed. We don’t really want to think about it and focus on getting to shore as quickly as possible but are now a little tense with the low visibility.

We begin to see the outline of a city on the horizon. It’s still blowing. We tuck in about 1.5 miles up river before the fixed bridge on the Absecon Inlet, as the waters get more protected and we drop anchor. We blow up the dingy and head into shore for a well deserved birthday burger and beer. 

We hang out for a few days. We order the transmitting equipment for our AIS, so that if ships aren’t looking out of the windows of their bridge or monitoring the radio on Channel 16, they will pick us up on their AIS device. We walk around the city to the boardwalk and realise that was probably not the best idea. Knowing nothing of the place, the coastal high rise city seems to be in disrepair. I had wanted to see the boardwalk where Ben finished RAM but he couldn’t remember, and was most likely delusional at that time. We head back and tour the old Trump Casino that we are anchored outside of and have dinner on a neighboring boat with some sailors heading for Nova Scotia. 

Our passage to Block Island is non eventful and calm. We pull into the Great Salt Pond 32 hours later as the moon is setting at 0245, and drop anchor among the horde of sleeping masts. An enjoyable couple of days were spent walking the island, it feels like we’ve made it north. But our final leg to our north-making would conclude in Provincetown, MA. 

We motored in flat seas along Buzzards bay and pull into Cuttyhunk Island seven hours later to stage ourselves for the Cape Cod canal. The only other boat anchored outside of the harbour was one we thought we recognised. We hollered, as we realised it was SV Josephine. We had met Diana and Blake six months prior in the Dry Tortugas National Park down in Florida when we took some time off to go sailing when friends visited. They were then just beginning their trip of an unspecified amount of time cruising while having worked on Josephine for five years, like us! It was encouraging to see and we looked forward to getting out there. So it was very cool to run into them up here. 

We timed our canal entrance a little after peak flood and had about 4-5knots of current with us. 50 minutes later we were spat out into Cape Cod bay where they say water temperatures are drastically cooler. Later that day we slowly sail into Provincetown and are greeted by Bloodhound sailing with her crew. We take a friends mooring out at Long Point, tucked away around the spit. 

We have made it! We can finally relax and start to enjoy the summer in blissful weather and not be sweltering in 95 degree heat without air conditioning. We have a great week spending time with our good friends Erin, Josh and their pups. We walk, bathe in the freshwater ponds, whale watch, dine well and eat plentiful seafood, our favourite has always been the Bay scallops.