Stats for June 15, 2019

Origin: Cape May, NJ

Destination: Atlantic City, NJ

Distance: 43.5

Speed: 8.6 mph

Time on the Move: 5 hours and 1 whole minute

We left Cape May early in the morning because the wind and waves were forecast to pick up in the afternoon. The ICW in New Jersey is infamous for being shallow and narrow with very unpredictable depths. Nearly all of the Loopers who have gone before us go outside (in the ocean as opposed to traveling the ICW) all the way from Cape May to New York City. Anyone who attempted the ICW probably ran aground…maybe even twice. It just isn’t a good spot to attempt staying inside. So we heeded the experiences of those who went before us and headed out to the great blue ocean.

I think we were feeling a little restless on the voyage this day. Maybe it was the unknowns of heading into the ocean or cabin fever from being stuck in Cape May for a while. Either way, everyone was getting a little silly underway.

We read about a dock in Atlantic City run by a maritime museum where you pay for the dockage and also get to visit the museum. Upon arrival, the other boats at the dock said no one ever pays, and sure enough, we never saw anyone from the museum, so free dockage it was! Tobin and Mike did claim to see a seahorse swimming along the edge of the dock along with lots of crabs. Sure enough, it was gone by the time we all came to check it out.

We ate lunch at a local breakfast restaurant that was very busy and well known before we headed off to find the lighthouse. We had to walk a few blocks to get there and it wasn’t the most comfortable walk. It seems Atlantic City has torn down lots of it’s old, abandoned buildings to avoid problems, and as a result, the area where we stayed seemed far away from the actual town with many empty blocks along the way. We kept our eyes open and stayed aware of our surroundings, and we were fine. We also squinted our eyes a lot to keep the blowing sand out of them because the wind was really kicking!

At 171 feet tall, the Absecon Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in New Jersey. It was built in 1854 and has a light keeper’s house down below that has been turned into a local maritime museum.

Lucky for Mike, the lighthouse offered free climbs to the top for fathers since it was Father’s Day weekend. Woo hoo!! The boys decided to climb to the top, too, but Hay and I were too cheap to pay $10 per person. We like lighthouses, but we’ve been in enough of them to actually pay for one!

After the trek to the top, we took part in shenanigans in the park before heading to the beach.

After we left the lighthouse we headed towards the beach. We were looking for the boardwalk or any liquor bottles left behind from the bootlegging days (not really, but Boardwalk Empire was my only background knowledge for Atlantic City), but instead we found all kinds of things flying in the air. We had to check it out!!

We stumbled upon the first ever east coast FPV Wing Racing event!! What is FPV Wing Racing you ask?! Previously we had no idea, but we loved watching people fly these super fast, super agile lightweight planes around inflatable uprights on a race course. It was amazing how fast they could go and that they weren’t blown right out of the sky with the major winds. Plus, the pilots wore virtual reality-style masks as they flew their crafts which was really intense.

We got to try out the virtual reality racing part ourselves and it was crazy. Colin and Mike were hooked!! After everyone got a try we headed on our way back to our search for the boardwalk.

Finally we made our way to the boardwalk. It was wider than Wildwood and instead of the motorized “tram car” there were all these people pushing little buggies around with people inside getting rides. Interesting. It was great for people watching, but we weren’t too impressed. The wind was way too windy to cross over to the beach, so we checked out the sights, found some snacks, and eventually ended up finding some roller coasters.

We climbed up to the observation deck of some hotel on our way back down the boardwalk. It was so windy, it was freaky being out along the open walkway with that wind!! But the view was nice!

Walking back to the boat, we passed by some fishermen. One of them just happened to catch this baby shark (doo doo do do do) and of course, Tobin had to give it a little kiss. We also got to feel his dentacles, which are like scales on his skin that make it feel rough, but allow him to swim faster. We love these real life experiences!!

When we got back to the boat there was a full on party going on at the restaurant next to our dock. We hid inside from the music and dancing crowds, but after things settled down that evening, we enjoyed the view. There were tour and fishing boats that went past our boat regularly at this spot and they were interesting to see.

The next day was Father’s Day and I can’t believe I don’t have a single picture of it, but I sure can’t find them. It was extremely windy all day and we were feeling lazy, so we stayed put. It was a big tv and relaxing day for everyone. Mike and I watched some of the PBS Jamestown series and the kids watched lots of PBS kids. I guess we’re a PBS family!! It doesn’t sound like much fun, but it was apparently what we needed and it matched the windy weather day, anyway.

Thanks for reading along and being so patient while I update you on all of our adventures!!