17 November 2014. PORTIMAO, PORTUGAL

You are catching us as we are finishing up a year on the hard. We were able to put the mast back on to the boat with a massive crane that arrived at almost 7pm, so yes, we were installing a 1 ton mast in a boat yard in the dark, with headlamps, enough helpers, and a few squished fingers.

 We don't have any photos of this great feat, because it was done in the dark! But we can prove that it was on the ground and we can prove that it is now on the boat, and almost completely installed.

What you don't see here are the hours of assembling our new rigging and attaching it to the mast. That was more or less 3 days of steady and constant work by Philip, and his two able assistants, Anneleize and Jabez.

Now you can see the mast up, but not yet tightened. We will wait to go in the water before tweaking and turning all the hardware to get her back to her usual sturdy self.

We are waiting for good weather for the final painting of the blue stripes, and for the name and hailing port to be put on.

 Eckhardt and Elvira, two German sailors, help us with the name.

 Not sure how many sailing boats, or boats in general there are with a hailing port of Woody Creek!

And one of the many lovely evening shows preformed for us in Portimao.

Here go the blue stripes

 And the worst part of all, the anifouling. Nice to paint with poison? Not really. It's to prevent barnacles and growth on the bottom of the boat. If we allow all the creatures that would like to make residence on the bottom of the boat, we would become an anchor and not a sailing boat!