Izzy and Jeff's Most Excellent Adventure: Butt to Butt in Barnegat

Hi All…Ben here in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.

Sitting here taking a break from Facebook.

So many things to write about, and so little time between naps...

We’ve been revisiting many familiar places along the ICW this month as we move north, and I like going back for the familiar smells, but Jeff and Izzy like to try some new places too.

One of the new places was Tidewater Marina, in Portsmouth, VA – just across the ICW from Norfolk where we stayed last year. They were having a big festival so lots of people were spending time partying on their boats. There were Tall Ships

and Lobster Boat races

Boats of all sizes were cruising the waters!

Our dock was full of people eating, drinking and laughing until all hours of the night.

Good thing I’m pretty deaf, cause there was a BIG fireworks display right in the harbor that rattled all the dishes and lit up the whole bay!

We met up with Hank and Ann to celebrate Hank’s birthday. I gave him a small framed picture of him blowing the sun down in the Bahamas on his conch shell. He was playing my special request - “Who Let the Dogs Out”.

Then they all went out to dinner without me. Wazzup with that? I think Hank owes me one.

Speaking of restaurants, we sailed to Chrisfield, MD this year. It’s known as the Crab capitol of the Chesapeake. Here is a picture of Jeff and Izzy with Hank and Ann at a big crab restaurant there. They came home smelling like fish.

Apparently they liked the crab well enough to stop another day at Hooperville, on Middle Hooper Island. Another cr abbing community. Not much going on there. We tied up to a wall…no electric hook up, no water hook up, no TOWN!

No Come Back!
On the bright side, Izzy bought fresh crab and made crab cakes for Jeff and me. My vote is to skip this spot next year. I think we can find crab in another place that has some dogs and grass, too.

From there we continued up the Chesapeake Bay to one of my favorite spots – Oxford, MD where we visited with cousin Brian and his friend Bill at their restaurant, “Schooners”.

We tied up right at the dock beside the restaurant for a couple of days.

I got to go on nice long walks and even a car ride, then relax in the sun in my yard.

Jeff and Izzy, and Hank and Ann were in heaven with the steamed muscles in tomato sauce and fresh crabs. Fortunately for Hank, Schooners also has GREAT juicy hamburgers...his favorite meal!

The crabs don’t get much fresher than this…there’s my buddy, Wayne, in his crabbing boat, “Necks & Gizzards” pulling in his lines with the catch of the day right there next to the restaurant.

It’s true…You can’t be crabby in Oxford!

On the other hand, you CAN be crabby in Greenwich, New Jersey, half way down the Delaware Bay. We were tired and being beat up by rough seas in the Delaware Bay, so decided to head into a calm little river called the Cohanesy.

Looks pleasant enough, but we were soon attacked again by the Greenhead flies!

Here they are on the roof of our flybridge, sharpening their teeth, I think.

No escaping them…they’re everywhere! The guy in the marina told us they have a 21 day life span, and they move from south to north. I think we followed them up the coast at the same rate as their life cycle. We’re probably on the 3rd generation by now!

Another place to add to the "Do Not Return" list!

On down the Bay the next day on our way to Cape May, New Jersey, we passed some more lighthouses. Can't imagine living on one of them.

Where's the yard??

We spent a couple days in Cape May resting Izzy's sore fanny at the pool in Canyon Club Marina, and waiting for a good weather window to go out into the Atlantic Ocean up to New York City. Jeff thought he had a nice clear day when he tried to leave one morning, but a wall of fog at the harbor entrance turned us around to cool our jets for an hour or two. We finally made our way out into the ocean in the mist. Our only entertainment on our way to Atlantic City that day was the Coast Guard practicing their water rescue techniques.

In Atlantic City, my good friend, Jeff Dobkin, met us for a quick visit. While I watched the boat, they walked to the "Back Bay Ale House" for dinner. Hank and Ann had just arrived with Crazy Cousin Marianne, so after dinner we dinghied over to visit with them on "Queen Ann's Revenge".

To avoid the shallow water of the next stop in Manasquan, NJ, we decided to anchor out on Barnegat Bay the next night. I know, you've been waiting to see what all this "butt to butt" stuff is all about, eh? Made you read the whole way through this blog to finally tell you!

Well, we wanted to have cocktails and dinner with "Queen Ann's Revenge" and get to know Crazy Cousin Marianne a little better, but neither of us wanted to bother putting the dinghy down to drive over to the other boat. So Jeff had another of his brilliant ideas to just tie up "butt to butt" in the bay.

It was quite a scene with lines flying every which way trying to lasso the "Queen's" butt. ( I mean the boat's butt...not Ann's). I'm glad everyone wasn't liquored up yet. Could have been a disaster. I try to stay out of the way when Jeff gets these wild hairs, so I was faking a nap on the flybridge with one eye on the shenanigans below. After a few attempts and lots of lines later, "Izzy R" and "Queen Ann's Revenge" were attached at the hip, and the merriment began. Cocktails on the "Izzy R" and dinner on the "Queen".

Ann and Hank and Crazy Cousin Marianne performed some fine gymnastic feats to get over the rails and through the maze of lines onto our boat while carrying their drinks and not spilling a drop. Sign of true sailors!

The scene wasn't quite a pretty when they all moved back to the Queen for dinner, and even worse when Izzy and Jeff returned home after dinner and more drinks. I heard a lot of laughing and carrying on as they tried to extricate themselves from the rope web between the boats, but luckily no one pulled a Natalie Wood.