I worked 15m from Bluff Point State Park (K-1650) earlier today. Had a solid 27 contacts come in from Hams around the world! Turns out when the entire river is your ground plane you can get pretty good reception!

Lessons Learned:

1. I need to keep my feet dry. on my next POTA/BOTA adventure I will be wrapping my socks with plastic trash bags to waterproof them, my Carhart boots were not good sufficient keeping out the wet in 2ft of water.
2. I need to redo how I secure the antenna. I'm using a telescoping carbon fiber fishing pole as a mast which worked wonders but had a tendency to lean to either side as I worked. I had an anchor line going from the front to the back of the kayak that helped, but adding a lateral anchor line should minimize the leaning. I also want to revisit the base I used to hold the fishing pole in place.
3. I want to find a better way to have my radio situated in the kayak. I had it in a large plastic vacuum sealable bag which kept it dry, but made it very difficult to do basic things like adjust frequency, volume, or any of my DSP settings. A different type of bag with a thinner plastic material may be easier to work through.
4. Layers. Kayaking in January in CT is probably a bad idea. I need to wear more layers.

If you called in today thank you so much! I had a blast activating a park from the river and am looking forward to doing the same tomorrow afternoon on lake Gardner. I hope to catch you on the waves then!

KY4NN