The old mast came down last Friday afternoon. There were a few heart-stopping moments as the crane grabbed the old mast and plucked it off the boat with no more effort than I might expend picking up a chopstick. But it was a 58 foot chopstick. Oh boy!

They lowered it onto a couple of padded rolling cradles, and that was it.

We spent Saturday and Sunday unscrewing nuts and taking off everything from the old mast that was usable or recyclable. The real fun job was pulling off the old track and shoving it onto the new mast. What a delightful experience, shoving it a few inches at a time, taking a breather and then shoving some more for 50 feet.

Maybe it is beacause I don't think I have a mechanical bone in my body, but this stuff mostly annoys me. I get frustrated when screws won't unscrew for me, or tracks won't slide for me, or Alan says, "here hold this," and then leaves me standing there for 10 minutes with some silly squirt bottle in my hand to squirt the track every couple of minutes. During those moments all I can think is how mind numbingly boring it is. I am sure plenty of people have thought my job was tedious too. So to each his own. But standing around holding a squirt bottle, or not being able to undo a bloody screw makes me feel like such a GIRL--as in only good for holding something or hanging around for entertainment value. And that pretty much sums up everything I hated doing and being as a teenager. Isn't it amazing how such a small part of one's life can have such staying power over a lifetime?

Although now that I think about it, it also takes me back to one spring break when I was in college. A bunch of us drove from Billings, Montana to Davis, Ca with the intent of playing in San Francisco (this was 1972--there was a lot of playing still going on in the Haight and I REALLY wanted to go out and play!) One of the people in the group was a newly-minted PhD who at recently finished his grad work at UC Davis. I had been doing some research with him to finish up some of his studies before publishing. When he found out we were going to CA, he caught a ride in exchange for a place for all of us to sleep in Davis.

Once there everyone else headed into San Francisco. When I started to leave with them he wanted to know where I was going and why I wasn't staying to help--apparently he hadn't understood the play concept. He thought I had gone along to help with his research (Really? Play in SF or sit in a dank hole of an apartment on an uncomfortable chair for 12 hours a day. In what universe are these two conditions comparable?). So while everyone else played in SF, I got to sit on a folding chair at a card table in his major advisor's crummy little dark and dingy apartment (Can you say recently divorced?) and run a calculator while they read me strings of numbers. As if either one of them couldn't operate a calculator. I was pissed off about that lost spring break for years (well, maybe I am not quite over it yet). Men can be so oblivious!!!

Now Alan is getting the chainplates ready for the new rigging. Not that we really have chainplates. Instead we have a bar (brand new titanium-$$$) that slides through three mounds of fiberglass. He pounded out the old bar and found a good sized hole on the starboard side under the old bar that was stuffed with paper towels. Once he got the paper towels out he could see into the settee cupboards. He is thinking that is why we often have water pouring into those cupboards when it rains. Hmmm. Not rocket science there! But it certainly creates a mystery for me--why would anyone fill any kind of hole on a BOAT that sits OUTSIDE in the WATER with paper towels? I am truly baffled by this one.

Tons more to do to old and new mast as well as to the boat to get ready to step the new mast. And five days left before "semi-retirement" begins.