Ah, the mysteries of life! Here we are in the mooring field after a blowy day and night and the wind has dropped and the waters calmed and we are trying to decide what to do. I have run the forecast tool and it looks like a Thursday departure from Sandy Hook would have better winds, lighter, and with less sea swell, but the price to be paid I'd an hour later in the tides to depart Port Washington. If we stayed another day we might be able to get the work done to put the new aerial up the main with Al from Moonlight Maid's help, and Barb can get some work done on our number 3 jib. Ah decisions, decisions.....

We have discovered that we can go into the town dock to pump out and take on water especially on a rising tide which it will be tomorrow AM when we are preparing for our departure. So, I guess that will be the plan - rise, breakfast, slip the mooring and head into the dock to fill up with water and time it to head out to the East River and through. Looks like Moonlight Maid will be staying another couple of days so after we leave we likely won't see them again until Annapolis.

By mid afternoon our buddy Al was over to help with the new antenna install. Once up there I fond that the bracket had corroded solidly to the antenna over the years so it was quite an effort to persuade the hex nut to let go and in the end it only did so at the expense of a third of the mount. Fortunately there was enough left to attaché the new antenna and even more fortunately the line went down through the mast easily. Praise be! So, now we have a new antenna and a new line to the deck. I have had a great upper body workout and all of the high altitude stuff to get the radio working again has been done.

We found out that due to some UN Climate Change conference and to the tension in the world with Russia and in the Middle East the East River in front of the UN will be closed from 1200-1400 tomorrow and every day until Friday we will be going into the maelstrom a little later than we would want to and perhaps not getting as far as Sandy Hook by tomorrow night. We'll see what tomorrow brings.