Thread: Newbie - is this hone sufficient?

Picked it up at a knife store. Dual sided/dual grit, but I'm not sure what the actual grit rating is...

It's from dan's whetstone company, the two sides are hard Arkansas and soft Arkansas according to the paper that came with it.

In the pic you can already see the gunk from my attempts at honing...which brings up another question - is the gunk bad?

Thanks!!
Geoff