We left Atlantic City @ sunrise.

Kelly promised a breakfast “to die for” and delivered in every way.

My favorite. Corn beef hash (“ova ah’d” as I say) with eggs a bit “sunny” and American Cheese on toasted wheat bread.

“Wheat bread” said with the emphasis on the “H” like how Stewie from Family Guy would say it. It sounds like an “Haach”.

Here is a video of us leaving AC. It was so calm that I simply untied the boat, stepped on and put it in forward to leave the slip.

We slipped past the Atlantic City USCG station where their rescue boat sat quietly.

 

The dogs like the cockpit grass and they often they need me take them there while we are underway.

While underway we were happy to find the sea state somewhat tame for the end of November. Our passage to Ocean city, MD was 9 knots the whole way.

While we did not have to slow down, the 25 knots winds made for a wet ride. Thankfully I stayed dry & never had to change out of my PJs and slippers.

The boat feels heavier than normal since we have her loaded with more stuff than usual. Even the bow spray seems to throw further.

Every marina we have visited thus far seemed to be shutting down due to the freezing temps.

 

This presents a challenge for us as there has not been any water to wash the boat or top off the water tanks. Thankfully, MV Simple Life has ~450 gallons of water aboard in her two tanks. As long as Kelly is not doing laundry (she loves doing laundry on the boat), water is not an issue.

The ride from AC to OC left plenty of dried salt crystals on the boat. Our salty windshield

glistened like a diamond in the sun.

Today’s trip was about 70 miles. That’s about an 8 hour trip. This late in the season you only have about 90 minutes more of daylight.

Upon arrival I was a bit embarrassed to have to hail the marina and ask where they were located. My Navionics chart chip from 2012 had the marina in a different location. The marina is actually very protected once you slip past daymarkers 1,2,3 & 4. Austin the dockhand was there to catch a line for us and hand us the diesel hose to top off our tanks. I added 350 gallons of diesel @ $3/gal.

That means we made it from Wickford, RI to Ocean City, MD on roughly 350 gallons of diesel. Not too shabby though if I were slowing down I could use half that.

Here are some pics us at the docks.

 

After a long day I needed to sneak away to a bar called the Sunset Grille.

We enjoyed happy hour with new friends “CathyPaul”. It’s actually Cathy & Paul but I’m sure I heard them combine themselves into a single name, “CathyPaul”.  They were lots of fun and kept me entertained the whole time.

They also taught me how to say the name of the island that I hope to anchor at tomorrow morning. It’s called Chincoteague Island “Chinko Tee gah”. Tomorrow’s trip there will look something like this..

The anchorage is exposed to the Atlantic but in a NW or W wind, I believe it will do just fine. I must say that after studying the charts there are very few inlets at this point in the trip. The inlets that you do find caution mariners about unmarked shoals, breakers over sandbars and shallows everywhere. If we had a faster boat we’d have more options to skip over the more challenging inlets. Instead we often must either stop sooner than we’d like or try to use all of the daylight to make it to the next anchorage or marina.

I found this webpage for  Chincoteague & Assateague Island . It talks about wild ponies on the island.. Maybe I should take the dink ashore and let the Chief Martin Brody and his sister Happy run with the ponies?

Well it’s late and I better hit the sack. These days we are running from sun up to sun down and it’s leaving us wanting more downtime.

Good night for now and Kelly & I want to give a shout out to all our high school classmates who had a reunion tonight.  We wish we could have made it but we left New England too late as it was.