Bare Aluminum Mast

The time has come to strip the flaking paint from the mast - all 51 feet of it - while the mast is up!

That's why I bought a Top Climber. It really works, but I still need a bit of practice before I'm as fast as this guy.

I had already scraped the bottom as far as I could reach. Now I actually got into the Top Climber for about an hour and scraped to the lower spreaders. One third down two thirds to go. I'll try not to forget the camera next time. And what a mess of paint flakes all over the deck.

Stairway to heaven.

I've decided to just leave it ugly. I'll take ugly over the hassle of unstepping it, painting it and stepping it again. That's what I did in 2007, and it was absolutely no fun, a waste of time and expensive. Maybe I'll paint it properly, or have a professional do it, when the time comes to downsize.

For those not familiar with aluminum and paint, if paint starts to bubble and flake and you don't scrape it, the water trapped between the paint and the aluminum will begin to cause corrosion and pitting.

Changing the topic, we now have a beach and a drydock at the marina. This is what happens when storm after storm dump tons of sand into your pool.

That's pretty shallow, I'd say.

I've also started contributing to Cruising Wiki. I've almost completed the section about Peniche.