08/19/2008 Maurice to Cape May

08/19/2008 We bummed around on the boat Tuesday morning working on repairs from the day before. I had worn an area of the main sail that rubbed against the stay when it was reefed. I put some sail tape on there for the time being until I can put a permanent fix on it. We also checked and cleaned up the harness I built for the dinghy and other small work. The boat really handled well for those conditions. For all of the pounding we gave her, I only found a couple of items on the floor in my office that I did not put aware properly. There were books stack horizontally instead on vertically on the book shelf. I was waiting until the tide had fully came in the river until we left. I figured this would give us a favorable tide and current for heading down to Cape May. We made a stop for fuel. Since our stop in Annapolis we went through 18 gallons of fuel. We have learned that running only one engine is twice as economical as running two because we don’t get twice the speed or even more. I was also happy to see fuel prices on the water for mid-grade at $3.88/gal.

We started out sailing down the bay to Cape May. Cape May is the southern point of New Jersey and sits on the Atlantic. As we hit the second way point, the wind was on our nose and pretty light. I decided again to motor-sail. With the favorable tide we traveled 5-6 kts with barely running the motor above idle. It was a relaxing day that I caught up on some reading and we did some laundry in the galley sink.

At 5:00PM we passed the cape on No Rush got her first taste of the Atlantic Ocean. When we turned the point we were able to sail with no motor and sailed all the way in the bay to our anchorage. We anchored west of the Coast Guard station in an area with four other cat’s. The cat next to us is owned by a couple of guys from Denver. Small world. It is a nice looking area and we are going to spend at least an extra day here.