Day 7: Atlantic City to Barnegat Bay

Well, I need a ton of updating to our schedule now after our mishaps yesterday. Here’s what’s going on:

We got up this morning and went down to Grainger’s on New Jersey Ave in AC and picked up (amazingly) our fuse and several backups. No oars needed to hold up the place. We then rode back, got the fuse installed, went to a pumpout/fuel stop and got out on the water in 1 hour and 15 minutes… needless to say we really wanted to leave Atlantic City.

Out on the Atlantic the water was a bit rough. We had about 6 to 8 foot swells which made the ride a bit stomache churning. I spent most of the day concentrating on keeping my breakfast down. It was alright though because for the first time all journey we got to sail the entire day! We had about 10 to 12 kts of wind the whole way at our backs, so we got on a broad reach and just flew.

We couldn’t find lodging at Manasquan, however, so we were forced to turn in early and make port at High Bar Harbor Marina and Yacht Club in Barnegat Bay. We have a seriously hefty sail ahead of us tomorrow to get to Liberty Landing in NYC but that’s alright, we’ll just do what we can. Catch you all tomorrow on the high seas!

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Murphy’s Law

So after getting up this morning we got things together to leave. We stayed up late last night doing laundry and were a bit under-rested at 8:00am when we got going, but it was alright. However, things started going awry. First, Captain Pete decided to take a swan dive into the slip in the marina (not a planned swan dive) while removing shore power and thoroughly ruined his phone, leather watch band, and normally debonair hairdo. The problems didn’t stop there though.

We had noticed for about 2 days that the lights inside the cabin were strobing – flickering very fast. Well, today we tried to get going and when we turned on all the instruments they started beeping on and off. At first we thought there were some wires crossed with the solar panel wiring that was tripping things up, but upon further investigation we learned that the battery switch which contols all of the power to and from the battery banks was completely fried. Not sure how that happened.

It was quite a process figuring all of this out, but eventually we decided to head to West Marine Supply Store in Little Egg Harbor (about 25 miles from Atlantic City). We dropped a hefty sum to the cab driver who took us to and from the store, and purchased our new switch and a replacement oar set for the dinghy which had lost one during its flipping adventure a couple days ago. New parts in hand, we returned to the boat at about 12:30pm hoping still to get underway by about 2.

Well, I installed the new switch and voila – power back online! Hoorah, one might think, but not today. Murphy’s Law struck again. The ignition refused to start the motor. We opened all the electrical boxes back up and started testing things. Power looked fine everywhere, yet we couldn’t get any of the cockpit gauges to come on nor the ignition. Well, we traced the problem back to a fuse that had blown on the way to the starter from the starter switch. Okay, so all we need is a little fuse. No problem, I’m sure there are tons of replacements onboard…

So two hours later we had called every electrical supply store in Atlantic City and found only one who could even understand the language we were speaking. They had the fuses, but not in stock. They’d have to bring them down from their warehouse. We said fine and now will have to pick up our ten-million backup fuses (to alleviate this problem from cropping up in the future) tomorrow morning at about 8:30am. If they don’t have them we’ll simply have to hold the store at oar-point (we have three now) until they bring out the fuses to us as ransom. Hopefully we’ll finally get away from this cursed town tomorrow and make our way to Manasquan. I’ll update all of you as I know more.

Trip officially behind one day.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Atlantic City Updates… or Downdates…

Hey all, thought I would update you guys on what’s been happening here in AC over the past two days. Last I recounted, we had reanchored and flipped the dinghy right side up and all was well again on the Audrey Marie. Well, not quite. We flooded the dinghy motor, so we had no way to get to land! We called around and finally got a slip yesterday afternoon about 1pm at Frank S. Farley State Marina located right on the Trump Marina Casino and Hotel. It is a beautiful place! Pics and video soon to come.

Momma Hinz came down (that’s Debbie for all you proper name folks) and hung out with us for the evening and up until breakfast today. Late evening yesterday Grande Ande O’Connor and the lovely Elizabeth Vincent (featured in a video I will post later as well) made it down and we all went out to the Borgata to throw money away! Turns out, I’m really good at it! I lost 200 smackers playing Texas Hold’em Nobody came away a millionaire that evening.

The next morning we got up and all had breakfast. As I said, Debbie headed back to NOVA and then Captain Pete, Grande, Elizabeth, and I made our way down to the Boardwalk. We went to Ceasars and Grande lost money playin cards to make me feel better. We then walked around a while and left Grande again to play cards at Bally’s. I then went and bought a sweet pair of deck shoes so I won’t wreck my feet leaping about on the Audrey Marie (pics to come of the fabulous footwear as well). I went back to check on Grande then and found him up! Really up! He won like 200 bucks playin cards but refused to compensate me for my losses. Oh well. I decided to celebrate his winnings by losing 100 more at the table a few feet from him. Sigh. Sometimes it’s just not your day.

Anyways, we’re getting ready for dinner. I’ll post some media when we get back. We’re back on the seas tomorrow! Take care everyone.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Drifting…

So after our crazy fiasco with the anchor last night, we finally got some sleep. This morning, however, we woke up a bit closer to our neighbors than we were when we went to bed! It was alright, we hauled up the anchor (again) and dropped it a hundred yards or so forward.

On another note… did I mention we’re close to Harrah’s?

Take care folks! Those of you coming to visit: gimme a call, we’re still trying to figure out if we’ll be in or outside of the marina this evening. I’ll keep you posted.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Videos Page

Just like with the photos, I realized there are a bunch more videos I want to share that are not really in posts. So I have compiled here all the footage I’ve taken so far on our journey in order. Check it out!

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Little Mishap… and a Video!

Hey all, so we had our first real mishap on this adventure. We were anchored as you will see at the end of this video, with a sailboat in front of us and the Taj Mahal just off its starboard bow. As I was uploading the video to post it, we started dragging anchor! Fun times.

I ran upstairs and Captain Pete and I scrambled to control the boat. We got the boat under control after much to do and then drug the anchor in. Once in we tried to move up and drop again… no dice, it didn’t stick. We tried again… and again no stick. So we drove around in circles for a while and found a new spot and dropped anchor there. Very careful to keep out of our neighbors’ way, we finally got the anchor to stick only to realize that the dinghy had flipped over and we were dragging it behind us.

With that fixed, we finally got in all of our supplies from the dinghy, like the fuel line and tank which miraculously survived, and we got the dinghy flipped upright.

Anywho, after all that I have a video and some pics for you! Enjoy.

The pictures are of a Tallship in Cape May, and pictures of three hotels in AC, the Borgata, the Taj Mahal, and Harrah’s.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Day 3: Cape May to Atlantic City

Hey guys, we have arrived and anchored in Atlantic City, NJ. Below is a map of our route and some quick and fairly accurate information on how to meet up with us. We’ll be here for about 3 days! We’re leaving early Monday morning, so you have the whole weekend to come bother us.

View Larger Map

It took us about 6 hours to get here from Cape May, a nice quick sail compared to our previous two days. Video and images incoming in a few minutes!

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Heading for Atlantic City

Hey there everyone, we’re up late this morning because we don’t have far to go! Sleeping in was nice for a change… yet somehow I woke up at 7am for no reason…

Anyway, we had a bit of an adventure last night trying to get into harbor at Cape May. We realized (luckily) about 3 hours out that we could not make it under the bridges at the Cape May Canal, so we had to go all the way around (you can see it on the map from yesterday) and come into Cape May Harbor from the Southeast. It added a few hours to our journey and we barely got in before nightfall, but that’s okay.

We marched our way out of the “Canyon Club Resort Marina” across a bridge into town and grabbed dinner at “Lucky Bones” – which was fabulous. They had live music and great food. We had Ecuadorian Decadance Chocolate Cake for dessert… I’m not sure what was “Ecuadorian” about it but it was good! A well deserved treat from the hard day’s sail.

As I said earlier we only have a short sail ahead of us so we’re going to do some maintenance stuff on the boat and get ready to head out. We should hit the sea by 11am and make anchor in Atlantic City hopefully around 5 or 6pm tonight. Let me know if you’re coming down to see us, we’ll be there through Monday morning.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Day 2: Chesapeake City to Cape May

So our second day of travel is well under way but I thought I’d be consistent and post a map of our journey so you all can view where we’re going. Not much to see out here in the Delaware Bay, but that’s okay – we’re making about 7kts and have been for hours. Should be in Cape May, NJ around 7:30pm.

View Larger Map

On this map is our route from our anchorage at Chesapeake City, MD through the C&D Canal to the Delaware Bay and down to Cape May, NJ. No close train stops unfortunately, but we’ll hopefully be able to easily get to Atlantic City the next day and meet up with a bunch of you hooligans.

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie

Photos, photos, photos!

Alrighty, so I promised pictures and you all are gonna get em! Check out the photos page: http://billhinzsailing.wordpress.com/photos.

Right now I’ve just put up a few from yesterday and one from when Ben came out to help get us ready to sail, but more will be coming soon!

- Bill, First Mate of the Audrey Marie