Sunday, May 4, 2014 Still Up Manasquan River, Near Brielle, NJ

We had a good night considering the swiftness of the water at max ebb and max flood.  At least, we didn't hobby-horse all night because the crazies weren't out in their boats at night!   Early in the morning, Chuck and I both heard a strange noise outside.  We got up quickly, dressed, and went outside to see what was making the noise that woke us.  Here, one of our fenders had moved and HHII's rub rail was rubbing on the piling.  It was hard to re-position the fender back between the boat and the piling because the water had us jammed against the dock.  After fixing that problem, we got back in bed and now the lift bridge siren is blaring to signal its closing...a train is coming.  All of this and it's only 6 am!

Not much else is happening here at Hoffman's Marina on the Manasquan river.  We knew
yesterday that we'd be here for at least 2 nights if not 3.  The weather just hasn't been very cooperative for us this spring. Tuesday looks excellent though!  So unless the weather report improves drastically for tomorrow, we'll be here again on Monday.  What a bummer because there's really nothing to do here. We found out that the marina has a marine store with West Marine products.  It's small and didn't take long to browse the short aisles.   Once the four of us walked to the east side of the marina to pay for tonight's stay, we went for our walk and found 6 restaurants within walking distance and nothing else.  So, it's back to our boats to lounge around...until we get restless.  We both had to get up and move.  Without David and Rita, Chuck and I can walk and  cover some serious ground!  The two of us decided to explore in the opposite direction from this morning.  We found a street with beautiful homes, both old and new.  A new house that was being built, has copper eave spouts and copper drains.  That must be pretty costly!  We crossed a fixed bridge as well as a bascule lift bridge after waiting for it to open and close....very, very slowly!  We eventually made it to an area known as Glimmer Glass until the threatening skies encouraged us to turn around and head back to Happy Hours. We never did find the town of Brielle.  

By afternoon, the winds were blowing so hard, we were glad we were tied up at a dock.  While Chuck sat in the cockpit, he watched somebody's igloo cooler float passed our boat and under the railroad bridge.   Shortly after the cooler, someone's live bait-well drifted passed.  Great!  Now there are blue 50 gallon barrels bumping  into docks and boats.    Quite an interesting area, that's for sure.  Hopefully the winds settle for the night...