Day 18: Manasquan to Cape May

Eleanor Escapes with a Little Help From Friends

Seems we’d squatted in ‘Squan for so long, the pier just didn’t want to let us go. I’ll skip past the trials (Jon will explain later) and jump to here:

Getting underway for the first time in 3.5 days

We started out rockin’ and rollin’. (Note to self: always buy the pre-cut fruit when breakfast will be served underway) but the Captain promised it would calm as we traveled south. And damn, if he wasn’t right again. ;-)

Eleanor was escorted past Atlantic City by some joyful companions:

And the captain was, once again, brave enough to turn over the helm…

Is it a bird? Or a lobster pot?

Hmmmmm, where did he go?

Captain Nap

Captain Couch (not the JD kind) rested up enough to go for a lovely (if not occasionally hair-raising) bike ride…

The cruising guide promises plenty of bike-able paths, but we were just one curb-jump away from death most of the time. Next book project: rewrite the cruising guide.

ISO…you guessed it… a lighthouse!

Built in 1859, the Cape May lighthouse is still an aid to navigation.

The Cape May lighthouse stands in a beautiful, well-maintained state park

We felt like extras in the 1988 film “Cocktail” as we dined at the bar in “Secondo,” just over a mile down the road from the Canyon Club Resort Marina in Wildwood. Performance bartending at its best. They made our night.

Tom Cruise has nothing on these three.

And now, as you’ve come to expect, some detail from Captain Nap:

To get underway, we have a routine we go through. I start by programing the route for the day into the Garmin chart plotter. It’s pretty easy with the built in “Autoroute” feature. I tag the destination marina and ask the Garmin to plot the route, based on my pre-selected preferences for minimum water depth, etc. It draws a magenta line on the digital chart and then I get to go in and edit to tweak the track away from navigation buoys or increase our clearance to shoal water. Regardless, we don’t just kick on the autopilot and delegate navigation to the chart plotter but we have an idea where we are going.

For Terese, the first order of the day is to make coffee. After that, we both sit down and do this blog.

When finally ready to actually get underway, we first take in the shore power cable. The 50-foot fat and heavy yellow cable connects Eleanor to a 50-amp outlet on the pier and provides all the power we need to run two air conditioners, hot water heater, electric range, microwave, battery charger, and anything we can plug into the numerous outlets around the boat.

Here in Manasquan we went to unplug and ran into a problem. The power pedestal on the pier wouldn’t let go. Our cable was firmly stuck in the outlet and locked in.

One of the biggest causes of fire on yachts are electrical, and not fuel as you might expect. Cables get old and the plugs on shore power cords get loose. Banging around by waves jiggles the plug and the electricity arcs in the socket, creating a lot of heat. Next thing you know the cable is burning and you’ve got a boat fire. The very first marina we stayed at back in 2020 on our journey home with Eleanor had three charred boats hauled out on shore with an insurance investigator poking around the wreckage. The dock master told us the middle boat had a worn-out cable that arced, catching all three boats on fire. Nobody onboard when it happened. Three total losses.

The first thing I did in November 2020 when we got home was buy brand new plugs for both ends of Eleanor’s shore power cable. Nice and tight. No corrosion. I knew the problem wasn’t with our cable. It was on the pier.

We’ve encountered this twice on this trip, both times at marinas near inlets along the Atlantic Ocean coast with a lot of salt air. The plug on our shore power cable is a female connection, with the power pedestal having the matching male outlet. Our plug goes over the male and then twists a half-inch to the right to lock itself in. The problem happens when the sea air has created a small amount of surface corrosion on the pedestal outlet. This amount of friction is just enough to make it nearly impossible to turn, and it must turn to unlock.

The first time this happened, a dock neighbor with a large set of channel locks came over and was able to grab our plug and get it to turn. I tried that trick here in Manasquan and my channel locks just weren’t big enough to get a good grip. One benefit of all my tinkering on Eleanor is the fairly extensive assortment of tools (excepting large channel lock pliers). I dug into the tool box and came up with a small filter wrench for our generator. It seemed about right so I slid it up the cable and with Terese helping tried to turn the plug. No joy.

Terese came up with an idea. She remembered we had a can of Zep 45 onboard, given to us by Craig Barnabee. Basically, its industrial strength WD-40 on steroids. It doesn’t just lubricate. It penetrates through microscopic gaps and unfreezes the toughest corroded connections. Bolts, nuts, why not shore power plugs? I ruled it out as there didn’t seem a way to get it inside the plug. I walked up the dock to the marina office looking for help but they are closed on Sundays. We were on our own. I walked back to the boat and Terese suggested again, why don’t we try the Zep.

Three squirts and it worked. The plug twisted right off.

It was a great lesson for me of crew working together. We’ve both learned a lot on this voyage. Terese is now comfortable driving the boat at sea, making decisions on avoiding other boats, and navigating. My big lesson on this trip is now knowing when to stay in my lane, and also when to stop playing captain and accept advice from the rest of the crew.

We took in our lines and got underway, reaching the inlet just as the dredge repositioned. We chatted on the radio and he slid over to let us out to a relatively calm Atlantic Ocean.

Manasquan Inlet Dredge

The ocean swells were about four feet but forecast to get smaller the further south we went. Ocean swells make us rock and roll but it is the wind waves that smack us around. With almost no wind, the ride was okay, and most importantly, not hurting Eleanor.

The engine was humming along as usual with no lingering effects from our shutdown coming past Sandy Hook. It was a pleasant cruise down the coast, and back to our Cape May home at the Canyon Club Marina. Next is the final dash through the two Bays to home. More tomorrow.