Still in New Jersey, barely...and other weather lies

For the last week or so the winds have been forecast out of the south, which sounds perfect to us since we're heading north.  Today's forecast was SW at 10 to 15 knots, increasing to 15 to 20.  That sounded perfect since we needed to go between 75 to 85 nautical miles, depending on where we ended up.  We were up by 5:00 and under way by 5:15.  Since the wind was directly astern it was a little to light to sail.  We put up the main sail and got between a half and a full knot of assist.  Eventually our ETA stabilized around 5:00 p.m. which was pretty encouraging for for such a long days distance.  It was very hazy and even though we were only 2 to 3 miles off shore we couldn't see land most of the time.  There were several large fishing boats in our path that we didn't see until we were about a mile from them.

Around 2:00 the Coast Guard issued a thunderstorm warning for the waters north of us.  Just about then our wind went really light and then shifted to the north.  The Coast Guard also issued a distress call about then for a boat at at unknown location with an unknown problem - mariners please be on the lookout!  Around 3:00 it started to rain, very hard at times, and then the wind started to build.  By 3:30 the wind was up to around 20 knots - out of the north!  Sue saw one gust to 28 knots.  Our boat speed started to drop as we motored into the wind and building waves, and soon our ETA was around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.!  At that point we were still 12 to 14 miles from the point where we could turn off the Atlantic and head into New York Harbor.

New York Harbor has to be one of the busiest harbors we've sailed in or through, with cruise liners, tugs and barges, freighters, ferry boats, military shipping, as well as pleasure craft criss-crossing all the channels.  We had not been to the anchorage by Sandy Hook, NJ that we had now decided on, and were really reluctant to try to find it after dark.  When our boat speed motoring dropped to under 3 knots occasionally we decided we had to sail.  We had been a little reluctant to sail at first since the wind was right on the nose.  Starboard tack would take us into shore and shallow water, while port tack would take us out into the freighter channel.  Once we got the sails back up our speed really started to increase, and eventually the wind shifted around enough that we could make our course without having to tack.  It turned out to be a pretty nice sail, despite beating into 3 to 4 foot waves.  Our ETA dropped back to 7:00.  Right now we are the only boat here, anchored right by the Coast Guard station at Sandy Hook.

So other than motoring for 10 hours, no visibility, heavy rain, big waves on the nose, looking for an unknown boat who-knows-where, and wind direction and speed totally unexpected, we had a pretty nice sail back into New York Harbor.  Tomorrow the plan is to head up the Hudson River and get a mooring or a dock by 79th Street so we can explore the city.  It seems a bit early in the season to me, but I've heard something about big apples.  Should make a nice addition to our diet.