Here we are, “rocking and rolling” on anchor at 1:00p.m. in front of the Coast Guard station in Sandy Hook, NJ in 93 degree heat with no air conditioning…Ahhh, the cruising life!   

Guess the 11 days of city/dock life made us soft.  How can we tell?  First I fell off the boat into the water while trying to pull away from the dock, it took us 3 tries to get the anchor set when we got here, and the waves from the ferries to NY, which won’t stop till about 10:00p.m., are making us a bit queasy. To add to it, our holding tank is full and smelling to high heaven.  Ewww…the cruising life.

We were looking forward to an easy day with only 12 miles to our anchorage. The “man cave” had gotten a thorough shakedown, clean enough for feminine occupancy, and laundry duty completed by 9:00.  Bow out with only a little wind on the stern, it was a cinch to pull away cleanly from Liberty Harbor Marina.  We had said our goodbyes and Captain had graciously told our Canadian friend, Bill, next to us that we could handle this one…boy was he wrong.  Only one line remained to be let go of when Dennis put Aurora in forward.  I thought I could do the cowboy move demonstrated by so many dock hands and flip it off the dock cleat, but instead flipped myself, thankfully feet first into the water behind the boat.  Oh the places you’ll go as a cruiser…yuck!  Quickly Dennis put the boat in neutral and yelling, “Are you OK?”  As I clunk to the dock with both hands I replied, “I’m fine,”  and I was, except for my pride, especially when Bill reached out his hand and said, ”I should have helped.” 

I nodded and responded, “And this was going to be sooo easy.”  At least I didn’t hit anything going into the water, and was able to get back to the boat, pull the ladder down, and with Bill’s helping hand again, get out of the New York Harbor water.  Not even wanting to speculate what might be lurking in the H2O, I quickly made for the shower, changed clothes and we were finally away from the dock around 9:30.

Bidding Lady Liberty “adieu,” sailing by one last time, through New York Harbor on calm seas and 5 mph westerly winds, we made it safely without encountering any challenging moving obstructions. 

Not sure why we have issues anchoring occasionally, but think it has to do with the anchor landing wrong, plus maybe currents causing it to shift directions as it hits bottom.  Today it took 3 times to get it set in 25 ft depth.  Once set well though, it doesn’t shift and that is a good thing in the 3-4 ft ferry created waves in Sandy Hook Bay.

On the bright side, there is a nice breeze, the head should get pumped out tomorrow, and the ferries do stop around 10:00p.m.  With a little luck, we can get a good night’s sleep before our eighty-mile trip tomorrow to Atlantic City.

Finally homeward bound after 78 days!