If not for the courage of the fearless mate....(Posted 1/21/2010)

When we took Amy, Mark and the girls out sailing during their visit here a pin fell out of the shackle connecting the mainsail to the main halyard (rope that hauls the sail up) and the halyard went to the top of the mast. I waited two weeks trying to find a way to retrieve it without going up the mast. I tried duct taping poles and PVC pipe together with a coathanger hook at the top end but trying to hook the small loop in the line 32 feet in the air proved impossible. Soooo......

Linda, the fearless mate, was all excited to get hoisted up the mast again, this time about two-thirds of the way up, to try to hook it with a shorter pole. Here is a photo of her up the mast taken by a neighboring boat:


She was successful in hooking the halyard and pulling it back down. Linda thought it was all great fun while I was down on the deck shaking from the adrenaline pumping and worrying she could fall or get stuck up there!!! :-)

So now that Enchantress has her "wings" back and is a sailboat again, we are hoping to go on a "mini-cruise" to some uninhabited islands for a couple of days next week. Friends on another boat are planning to go with us on their boat.