WTFR WE? : The Hudson River - Part One

Stepping the Mast

After a few days of rest, relaxation and catch up in Waterford, we went through Federal Lock 1 and on down the Hudson River.
We spent the evening on a mooring ball at Castleton and took off early the next morning to Catskill, NY to get our mast stepped. We arrived at Riverview Marina Services early afternoon. Either Riverview was extremely efficient or our timing was excellent because we had barely arrived and tied up to the dock before we were corralled over to the stepping dock. In a whirlwind of finely orchestrated activity the mast slowly rose up like a giant prehistoric Araneide weaving a magnificent new (hopefully untangled) web.

Jeff had assisted in stepping the mast a couple of times before and being the "can do" person that he is, elected to do all the rigging and wiring himself,

what better way to learn right? Jeff and I (his not so able assistant) spent the better part of the evening and all of the next day readying the mast, boom and sails for the next leg of our adventure. Naturally it did not all go perfectly, it is a boat after all. Our radar was not transmitting. Oh well, we consoled ourselves in that we have charts and AIS. And we pulled out the ole " sailors did fine before (fill in the blank)/radar" to comfort ourselves. Anyway the whole deal was, in my opinion, A LOT OF ARDUOUS TEDIOUS work (Jeff would call it "fun") but I kept telling myself it will be worth it to finally get the sails out of the “garage” and a deck view again.