Brewer Crystal River Marina

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 63 - June 2nd, 2017

Our cruise from Brandt Beach to Manasquan was very calm and enjoyable, and for the most part, the NJICW had adequate depths. Although there were several spots of skinny water, we had no issues. The last part, through the Point Pleasant Canal into Manasquan, however, was exciting, since we had a full ocean current flooding the canal against us! Thankfully, it is a fairly short canal and we were soon out the other end into the Manasquan Harbor, and made our way up to our marina, the Brewer Crystal River Marina. This was the first time that we had used the dockwa.com site to make our marina reservation, and it was quite painless!

Getting into our slip at the marina and getting tied up, however, were a bit of a nightmare. They had put us in the worst possible spot, on the pier all the way at the end which is up against the concrete wall of the Rt. 70 bridge, with a fairly narrow fairway with adverse wind and current. The slips were not numbered that we could see, and although we knew our assigned slip, we were unsure where we were supposed to go, but finally the dockmaster came down and showed us where it was. I managed to get in bow in, hitting the concrete wall with our kicker which knocked a chunk out of the cavitation plate. We don't think there was any other damage but we will have to start it up for a test. After we were in, we thought we would just put out bow and stern lines and get off the boat at the bow, but the dockmaster said he wanted us stern in, so he and a few other guys turned us around. Then he had a hell of a time tying our bow lines to the pilings.This is one of the those GOOFY eastern style slips with little finger piers and pilings, where most boats, which are uniformly much longer and wider than our C-Dory, back in and tie to the pilings at the bow.  With apologies to my East Coast friends, you need to see how marina slips are SUPPOSED to be constructed - go to any Washington marina and take a look. A proper marina has floating docks long enough for side ties, no pilings obstructing approach to the dock, and cleats for side ties. Actually the Schooner Island Marina in Wildwood was just like West Coast marinas. I guess that is enough dissing East Coast wet slips, old traditions must die hard.

Our friends Bob and Maureen Clark picked us up at the marina, and we went back to their house in Roosevelt. In the evening we went out for a really nice dinner at Fernando's in Hightstown. After dinner we sat around their living room and reminisced,  We were spent when we tumbled into bed!