Great sailing

We're making fast progress down the Jersey Shore towards Atlantic City. The wind is a good force five and it's coming from forward of the beam, meaning that we're making progress towards the wind. Normally this is hard work, but today it's just at the right angle to go fast and, most importantly, it's blowing off the land so we have almost flat water here a mile off the beach.

This coast is one long thin barrier beach between the open ocean and protected pools behind the beach and before the mainland. There is the occasional inlet where we can get in from open water for a sheltered anchorage, and this is where the fisherman, power boats and occasional sailors congregate. I imagine that in summer it is a playground for families and anyone who likes to be on or beside the water yet now as autumn begins it is cooler, windier and suggests a bleak and harsh winter landscape. I wouldn't like to be on this shore in a big easterly winter gale.

Last night we anchored in a narrow channel at Manasquan. Whilst there was plenty of water around, most of is was very shallow and we had to stay to the few areas of deep water. To anchor in the channel carried the dual problems of getting in the way of the locals and having the boat swing at the turn of the tide, probably onto the nearby mudflat. We solved this problem, however, by laying out two anchors, one ahead as usual and the other astern, so we were held parallel to, and on the edge of, the channel. It worked a treat, although I still got up briefly at two am to make sure she stayed put at the tide turned.

A nice dinner of steak, potatoes and grilled red pepper went well with a beer and we rounded off the evening with a nice single malt, a little of which has survived the last year aboard, hiding cautiously in a secure little nook, making sure that the rum is noticed and drunk first....

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