Float Plan

I've been looking at the route and trying to plan my trip over the last few days. As I mentioned before, I was planning on taking the inter coastal waterway (ICW) because I didn't think I'd have the boat ready to go off-shore. However, after looking at the route and figuring how far I could travel each day by myself, I don't think that's really feasible. The problem is New Jersey. It's some 140 nautical miles from New York Harbor to Cape May and the Delaware River.

If I only travel during daylight, that's about 50 miles a day, and I'd have to either anchor or find a dock somewhere along the way. Once I got into the inter-coastal, that's not a problem, but since I have to go outside all the way to Cape May, and as far as I can tell, there really aren't any good anchorages along the coast, I'd have to find, and pay for, marinas. When I spoke to people about it before, the rule of thumb was that it only took a day to get to the Delaware, but that's obviously only applicable if you sail 24 hours a day, which I can't really do if I stay close to shore.

So, that means I still need to be able to go off-shore, even if I want to take the ICW once I get further south. That's not a big deal, but it does mean I need to put down the non-skid, and get my radios up and running. The non-skid should take a few days, during which, I should be able to get the radios installed and working. And, if I've got the boat ready to go off-shore anyway, there's no reason to go through New York and down the New Jersey coast.

New York Harbor is extremely crowded, and I don't think the New Jersey coast, or even the Delaware is that much better. An alternative, would be to go East to Montauk, and head out from there. There's still a lot of traffic there, e.g., Boston to New York, but it's still a lot less than into and out of New York Harbor. If I leave from there, I'd just head South and tuck in when and if necessary.