Poughkeepsie NY, N41 42 W73 57

Poughkeepsie NY, N41 42 W73 57
October 21. We felt much freer today. We finished erecting the mast. Our expected guests cancelled weekend plans. I repaired the wiring so that the wind instruments and the radar work once again. We can sail to NYC then out to sea as soon as we want. Both Libby and I feel a surge of freedom.

It was a lovely day even if it did start off at freezing (zero degrees C). The river was covered with fog and there were numerous photo opportunities. We tried to capture some with the camera.



The day got progressively sunnier and warmer and the foliage color along the banks got nicer. There was no wind and only a handful of boats on the river. Altogether a fine fall day.










We stopped at 1600 at the only feasible place around. We’re at the Mariner Restaurant dock and we can stay here if we buy dinner. Our progress for today was only 45 miles. We’ll have to do 80 miles tomorrow if we want to make Liberty Island. The weather forecast predicts rain Saturday night through Tuesday.

I didn’t write any blogs in Catskill. Apologies. A lot of things happened. The first night (Tuesday) we stayed at a restaurant dock. That evening I set up our new folding bicycle for the first time. I set out to take the PC up to the Catskill Library to post my blogs. I had a milk crate tied to the luggage rack as a cargo carrier and the computer in the crate. Before getting off the dock, the bike hit a bump and the computer leaped out of the crate and into the water. It was only 2 feet deep. I retrieved it right away, but it doesn’t work. Oh no!

Our grand total of things lost into the water since February is one pocket knife, two boat hooks, a cell phone, a camera, an end wrench, a light bulb, and now a laptop computer. I’ll bet that no matter how many years we sail, dropping things into the water will never cease. Mariners must accept that hazard.

Actually I was thinking of getting a new laptop anyhow. The old one can’t recognize two PCMCIA WI-FI cards from two manufacturers. I suspect something wrong on the mother board. Also, it wouldn’t recognize either GPS via the serial or USB ports. I want to use the GPS with several software programs we have.

Wednesday we put the mast back up. Once again it felt like a lot of work. Everything went OK except that all the wiring bundles coming down from the mast and through the deck wound up 5 cm too short! There must be a kink in the cables that did not get pulled straight before stepping the mast. The only way to get the kink out to take the mast down again. We’re not going to do that. Today I laboriously created 5 cm extensions for 19 wires using butt crimp connectors. Luckily I had a package of 20 connectors, only one left now. Anyhow, the instruments work. Tonight we’ll try the anchor and steaming lights on the mast. I have a new masthead light with a photocell that automatically turns the light off at dawn. That means that I can’t test it during daylight.

Thursday was shore chore day. We rented a car and drove up to Schenectady. Our missions were to (1) buy a new thermostat for the refrigerator, (2) sign papers for the house with Rollie Faulkner, our attorney, (3) buy a new computer. I couldn’t easily order a computer online because I wouldn’t know where to ship it to. We accomplished tasks 2 and 3. Rollie surprised us with a lunch with him and his wife Rosemary. That was a lot of fun. The Faulkners told us about their trip to Italy.

The new computer is an Averatec 4200. My friend Cheri Warren told me that Averatec is a best buy. We went from store to store checking prices and models. On our fourth stop we went to Staples. Luckily they carried Averatec and luckily they had a good one on sale. It was the floor model. They reloaded it with a fresh copy of Windows XP and had it ready for me by 1900. We took it up to the Kinkos on Wolf Road and registered the warranties, and rebates, and downloaded Firefox, and posted blogs. The new computer seems neat so far. I haven’t learned all about it yet, but it has internal WI-FI and it did recognize connections to the Garmin GPS. So far so good.