Today I spent the day up the mast. Supported by a new bosun's chair that replaced the torture device that came with the boat, I was able to hang 25 feet in the air for hours with only minor numbness and a lasting twinge in my right knee. What was I doing there, you ask? I was installing the new radar with which we will see in the fog and the darkness.

As if hanging halfway up the mast all day weren't exciting enough, I did have an adventure while installing the radar. The radar is connected to the mast by a bracket. This bracket clutches the mast with four little feet that get pop-riveted in. Well, all day long I was feeling smug for not having dropped anything. Then, around 2, I managed to let go of the fourth--and only remaining uninstalled--foot. Down it went with a clatter on the deck and a thump on the dock and a tiny, terminal splash into the water next to the neighbor's boat.

Now perhaps a sensible person would take this as an opportunity to descend the mast and go have some iced tea, and try to mail-order a new foot. But we really are running out of time, and I really wanted to get the project done sooner than the Internet could provide.

So I had to find the foot. The radar mounting bracket was designed to be sustained by four feet, not three. Sarka let me down the mast (no small feat), I donned my new snorkeling gear, including the fancy new mask with corrective lenses (heaven!) and leapt into the murky, chilly water. The bay is cold, if you didn't know. And murky. And diving down ten feet, I found mussel shells and what looked like toilet paper (and probably was), and mud and some sea cucumbers and no radar mounting bracket. So I tried again and again, and in a few minutes I had stirred the soup enough that I couldn't find the bottom when I dove below. Everything was just brown. I brought up a mussel shell as a sort of halfhearted consolation prize, but it fell apart as I ascended. Finally, I was about ready to give up when I tried an area I hadn't visited before, and just as I headed up I saw the little bugger. My arm shot out, I grabbed the foot and flailed back to the surface. Whew!

One thing I have learned around boats is that much of the time you just have to take care of things. Nobody else is going to do it, and there's no time like the present. You're surrounded by these ridiculous dynamic forces like gravity and the coriolis effect and corrosion and cold water and they are totally indifferent to you. It's not that they are out to get you or anything, but they require you to be willful if you are going to get what you want. So you have to come down the mast and put on your snorkeling gear if you're going to get your way.

And by the end of the day I had installed the radar. Now we'll just need some fog or darkness and we'll be all set.