Day 6 Barneget Bay, NJ

We had a great night's sleep after a long day yesterday. By 8AM we motored to the fuel dock in Sandy Hook to top up our fuel tank and by 8:30 were off. We decided to not wait for s/v Auto Voyager because we wanted to get going as far as we could. Atlantic City would have been 10-12 hours and our starboard running light is out so we can not motor after dark now. So our destination was to be Barneget Bay, NJ. We radioed ahead to another boat who made the NYC passage yesterday with us, s/v Symmetry. They were also headed to the same location so we stayed in touch during the day. The New Jersey coastline is just ocean to the left and beach, houses, condos to the right. A straight line all the way South. The weather was really good, calm seas, but the wind was on our nose at 10k and it was cloudy, making the passage kind of cold. Today we travelled about 40-45 miles...another 8.5 hour day. After 2 hours we picked up some current and were able to average about 6.2k. Our main sail went up after 3 hours, tight into the wind, and that added another few tenths to our speed. We heard from yesterdays "angels" who guided us through NYC, s/v Auto Voyager, and they were headed right to Atlantic City, arriving around 10PM. Part way through the voyage Jane had the helm and noticed our GPS was losing all detail around Manasquam Inlet. Well, that created a few extra heartbeats because our destination is know for being a shallow inlet prone to shoaling!!!! And we did not have a paper chart. One of our oversights in buying charts & guides was the New Jersey Coast. In fact none of the guide books list Barneget Bay as a stop over for sailboats!!! So Peter called Navionics (Thank God for cell phones) and they guided him through changing the chip without having to turn off the navigation or autopilot! We thought our New England chip was good to Cape May but it wasn't! Anyway we made it into Barneget Inlet by 4:30PM. We drifted through a little sand bar just before reaching the anchorage field but are now happily swinging for the night on our anchor. Jane is enjoying her glass of wine, Pretzel is sleeping again, and Peter is reading Latts & Atts. Tomorrow we head for Atlantic City, hopefully!!