Saturday Oct 15: When I last left you hanging I’m sure you (ok, I hope maybe you were) were wondering if the shredded sail belonged to Ortolan. Lucky us, no. Unlucky owner of the Catalina 36, yes.

The wind howled last night and while it backed down in the morning, it picked up again during the day, topping out at 37 mph. Behind the protection of the breakwater sits Atlantic Highlands Marina and AHYC. The yacht club runs the moorings and roughly half the slips. They operate a launch, two in season, and the guys are terrific. Polite, prompt and even with the boats swinging around they come up neatly alongside like the pros they clearly are.

From our mooring we could see out into the Lower Bay and except for the fishing boats- mostly commercial- not many were crazy enough to be out in 25mph plus, winds.

We  (Ok, I hogged the laptop for most of the day) caught up on stuff while listening to VHF chatter and watching what little boat activity was happening. Checked weather sources- NOAA, Sailflow.con and PassageWeather- about a zillion times trying to find a 36 hour window to run down to Norfolk.

We heard about the disabled Catalina before we saw the sorry sight. Tow Boat U.S. went to assist a boat who’d lost steering and suffered a shredded jib, just outside Sandy Hook.  Tow Boat wouldn’t take him anywhere under a bridge in the near gale winds, so they called the AHYC for a mooring. Guess where? Oh, that new camera is coming in handy. The mooring next to us was the assigned spot. The skipper had a cell, but no, or no working VHF.  uhn, uh. Couple no-nos there.

Limping in to mooring field with costly assistance

Sunday Oct 15: Sunny again and not quite as windy. We took the launch in and walked around and to a Super FoodTown for a backpack’s worth of groceries. More weather checking, then lo and behold we find a window Monday and Tuesday.  Just have to “pull an Indigo” and leave at very dark thirty to have a chance of arriving at Point Comfort by 6pm Tues.

A Humpback whale was spotted off Asbury Park, about 25 miles south of us. Hope we don’t bump into any of those guys.

Prepped for the overnight- oh yippy! run. Can not wait until we are anchored in Point Comfort. Don’t think it will live up to its name though. Winds are forecast to get nasty again off Norfolk by Wed morning.