We left Port Washington early on Monday morning so we could catch the tide going through the East River in the direction we needed it to be going to help us though. The tide is strong enough that we’d be pushed backwards if it was against us.

Even with the tide assist we still took hours upon hours to get “outside”. I was hoping that we’d get outside by noon but it was closer to three in the afternoon. Still we made it through without any issues.

One thing that we were expecting was a forecast that called for almost no wind. I was planning on using the engine the whole time but quickly discovered that the forecast was wrong and we had 15 knots on our nose, that slowed us down and also made us consume significantly more fuel that I’d planned on using.

The next morning we’d made it as far as Ocean City NJ and decided to make the stop for the night. Our original plan was to head down to Lewes DE and anchor behind the breakwater for some meetings I had on Wednesday but Ocean City was a daytime stop and they had a fuel dock.

The entrance was certainly not something I’d want to do in rough weather. It’s narrow, not well marked, and shoals. It goes from 20 feet deep to 3 feet deep in the blink of an eye. I was glad for the chop over the 3 foot sections so I could see where they were. I was also very glad for GPS and accurate charts.

Once inside it was flat calm and the anchorage was HUGE.

Liam and I made our way to the fuel dock in the dinghy since the fuel dock was on the other side of a bridge that the big boat wouldn’t fit under. We then stopped at the the town’s dinghy dock and went to the Post Office, and to the grocery store. A cute town that would be a good place to stop for a bit if we had time.

Wednesday was meeting day and we decided to leave right after my meeting which was about 3pm, outside and offshore again we did a double overnight with the engine running the whole time so we would arrive Friday morning in Hampton VA just across the water from Norfolk VA anchoring by Fort Monroe in the Phoebus neighborhood.

I used the time to charge the dinghy battery to 100% and we only used about 30% capacity in the days it took for the new charge controller for the dinghy to arrive.