Those who know me well are acutely aware heat is just not my cup of tea. Simplistic idiom aside, if the tea were iced, I’d be totally on board. Being of Russian descent, I tend to melt rather rapidly when the thermometer goes above 80 degrees. And if the humidity is high, well, that only magnifies my misery. I’ll take the snow and cold any time.
After undergoing an echocardiogram in Manhattan on July 14, I returned home to North Haven later that night. All went well.
But by the next day, the music had stopped, literally. Before heading off to play my regular game of tennis on an extremely hot and humid day, we experienced a sudden electrical power surge at the house at 6:30 a.m. The lights in the kitchen blinked, dimmed, and ultimately went off, just I was about to exit the front door. Thankfully, they returned to full brightness a few seconds later as the large generator next to our garage kicked into full gear, doing its job in a much-needed circumstance.
When I returned three hours later and found the generator still humming along, it was a puzzling sign of the trouble that lay ahead. Usually, these power outages last for a minute or two and then the generator shuts off. “Houston, we have a problem.”
In my drenched tennis clothes, I went to the basement to check out the circuit panel and was shocked to see that six circuits needed to be reset. That was a world record for me. I’ve never had more than one that needed to be re-tripped. I promptly reset all of them and prayed that the generator would turn off as it should. No such luck.
Long story, short, in succession, I called the person who services our generator, as well as PSEG and our electrician. All were perplexed when they showed up during the day.
In the normal world, we should receive around 235 volts of electricity via two main lines to our house, but we were only getting a mere 18. That amount could barely run a hair dryer. Our house was on life support.
For several days, the generator ran continuously. But it only serviced the main essentials of the house like the refrigerator, garage door, kitchen lights, and main bedroom. My basement freezer, which contains six large flats of bunker for lobster bait, was also powered by the unit. I can only imagine the stench if the freezer were off the grid for days.
At certain points, our indoor temperature reached 85 degrees. At night, I could barely sleep. Even with the ceiling fan working, I was in misery.
Finally, by Friday afternoon, the problem was solved. The culprit was a badly burned and frayed main line buried about two feet below our meter box that’s affixed to our house. The problem was likely festering ever since the house was built six years ago.
I was grateful that our problem was solved, especially as the heat is expected to return later this week. We still have two months of summer left, and I want to stay as cool as possible before my comfort days of winter return.
On the fishing scene, things are as they typically are for summer. On Sunday, I took four of my friends along with Capt. Rob Aaronson of the charter boat Oh Brother out of Montauk. Aaronson took us first to Block Island to focus on sea bass and fluke. The pickings were slim there and the seasoned captain headed back west back toward Montauk.
He put us on a small piece, possibly a wreck, and we bailed a quick limit of sea bass up to three pounds. The action was fast and furious. We then spent the next few hours on the search for fluke. We landed a few keepers and quite a few shorts. It was my first time fishing out of Montauk this season, and it was good to be back home.
“Porgy fishing has been great off of Sammy’s Beach and Maidstone,” observed Sebastian Gorgone of Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle in East Hampton. “I’m getting better reports on the local fluke scene, and blowfish are around, along with a few weakfish off of Gerard Drive.”
Gorgone added that large striped bass are still being landed on live eels during the nighttime hours.
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Fishing tips, observations, and photographs can be sent to [email protected].