Howling, gusty winds continue after 24 hours of thunderstorms

Exhaustion has overcome me, and I don’t know how Tim does it.  An experienced, and “been there”, “seen this before” sailor, he truly is!  I appreciate his knowledge and composure more each day.

This weather pattern we’re in is relentlessly keeping us here in this Inlet. It doesn’t appear that we’ll be leaving any time soon either. We had planned to spend today doing odd jobs on the boat, and still may, and then go ashore to walk around the Barnegat Bay Lighthouse and State Park, but the morning started very early for us. We were both fitfully sleeping, and checking every hour or so to be sure we hadn’t dragged the anchor again. You cannot get a good night’s sleep on that kind of “watch”.  And the howling, screaming winds, rocking the boat from side to side, were daunting. 

Our anchorage in Atlantic City came back to haunt us as well. When pulling the anchor and chain at that time we noticed hundreds of these shelled “sea creatures” clinging to the line. Within an hour or so, we had gotten into a slip, and pulled the anchor line onto the bow of the boat to clean it more thoroughly. Even leaving the chain out on the deck to dry I thought was a brilliant idea, but for some reason a few remained in the chain “locker”, which is located in the forward berth area. After 3 days of “decaying” in there, the stench became overwhelming. So, in the midst of all the storms yesterday, and not much of a break to clean it out, we had that to deal with first thing this morning. Thank goodness for Tim, because he did all the hard work, I just stripped the linens and aired out everything, including the mattresses in the cockpit.

Tim has just measured the wind gusts: constantly at  25 KTS  and accelerating to 35KTS Where’s a kite when I need one, or Viva’s Magic Bubble Wand?

The walk around the State Park will have to wait til tomorrow, since it’s mid-afternoon and there’s no end to this wind…….would be impossible to take the dinghy to shore.  So the other options are to take a nap, and read a little in the sunshine........hmmmmm.

                          Here are storm clouds that hovered over us most of the day yesterday

  

                                                    And then a rainbow just for Nana's Viva:)


                   Isn't this sunset gorgeous?  Honestly, nature is so spectacular on the water.

          And here's the love of my life, at the moment......how precious and endearing Viva is to me! Thank you Steph and Joey :)

                This photo is of a plaque that hangs above the main cabin hanging locker, and it reads:
                                                           "IN APPRECIATION
                                                   B.B.Y.R.A. COMMITTEE BOAT
                                                                      1982"

   The original owner of this 1979, 37 ft  TARTAN sailing vessel, was evidently very interested in racing, and the ironical thing is, this boat lived in these waters! The B.B.Y.R.A. stands for:
                                            Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association

How cool is that? So this sailboat has "come back home" to it's original port, so to speak!   Life is interesting is it not?

I'm beginning to think that I haven't spoken at all about "An Cobh".......more to come about her, with a picture or two, from our dinghy........she is a beauty.