Back to Huntington

I finally made it back to Huntington yesterday. The weather cleared up, and it was a beautiful day -- really enjoyed the sail over. It should stay nice up until Wednesday, so I'm going to try to run all my errand today, then go with Kieran and his kids to Costco tomorrow morning for provisions, and sail back down to Throgs Neck either Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. I'll anchor there for the night, pass through Hell gate the the following morning, then sail down to Cape May the next day. Not sure where or how far I'll go after that, but at this time of year, it's all dependent on the weather.

Coneys is letting me stay on an empty mooring for a couple days, so I'm sitting near the north end of the harbor just off the Gold Star Battalion Beach while I'm here (don't know the history, but will try to look it up). It's a little far to the town dock, but the harbor is well protected, and I don't have to worry about the anchor, so I'm happy to have it.

Once we picked up the mooring last night, Zoe and I took the dinghy down to the dock and had dinner at the Rock. It was the first good meal I've had in almost three months. Kieran came by to say hi, and Zoe got to see her friend Frazier, a big English bulldog. I also got to watch the first few innings of the Tigers-Yankees game, but we were both so tired, we left after the 4th inning. We had to take the dinghy back to the boat in the dark.

Radio watch:

Unfortunately, I need to send my new Icom IC-7000 back for service. I'm not sure what happened, but the internal amplifier stopped working, so I'm only putting out an ultra QRP signal (QRP is ham-speak for low power, normally <10 watts -- I'm probably putting out less than 1 watt). There's a UPS store within walking distance from the dock, so I'll pack it up and send it in sometime today. Hopefully, I can get it back somewhere along the way, perhaps shipped to a marina or a fellow NCS along my route. Otherwise, I'll have them send it to Paul's business in Baytown.

For the time being, I'm using my marine rig, an IC M700Pro, which still works great. However, without the filters, I have trouble hearing the really light stations, and without compression, my transmission doesn't have quite as much punch. I'd gotten it setup to the point that if I heard them, they heard me, and vice versa, but with the marine rig, it's sorta a crap shoot. I think I can hear more than can hear me, but both are noticeably less than the 7000 which only puts out 100 watts. It's a really nice radio when it works.