We started the day early. I was unsure weather to go the inside route or brave the outside. Several boats were leaving the same time and were planning the outside route. As we were starting to leave we met a Texas boater who had done the loop twice before. He had a larger boat and said he was going inside. So we followed him out of the marina and along the NJ ICW.

It wasn’t more than a half hour before he ran aground. We tried to help by looking for deeper water for him. We even tried giving him a pull off the shoal to no avail. He decided to call TowBoat, so we went on by ourselves, thankful for our shallow draft. We later heard that he was stuck all day because the tide went out and they had to wait until the tide came back in before they could be towed to deeper water.

The rest of the day was uneventful and fairly relaxing. We encountered a few shallow spots, but none were too shallow for our small boat.

We docked at Hoffman’s Marina at Manasquan Inlet to prepare for the big day: heading outside and through New York Harbor.