Goedemorgen,

Two photos are worth a day’s work!  Several days actually with lots of waiting for the wind to stop in-between.  The paravane stabilizing arms came down several days ago but we had to wait for the wind to totally stop before the mast could be safely taken down.  Yesterday the wind stopped and the morning rain came and went until noon when it finally stopped and the sun was showed up for the finishing touches. 

Hans the marina manager is on the white boat across the dock; Randal on the crane winch raising the mast and Rick and Mary on more lines as the mast is set into the cradle that will carry it along our river trip.  It had to be set into the cradle so not to block the deck and had to be high enough so we could get under it to work with the lines on that side of the boat.

By Randal and Rick building the cradle and using the 14 Euro crane to take down the mast themselves, they probably saved about 2,000 Euro which is what friends paid to have their mast done!  It was terrifying for me to think about and looked scary to watch, but it all worked pretty smoothly.

So this morning we’re off by 9:15 to catch the bridge opening times between here and Middelburg though we won’t stop there as we visited it Monday by train.  Could have probably walked there as the train trip was 7 minutes and we walked further than that to Charing Cross when we were in London. 

Not sure when we’ll have wifi again, but when we do I’ll try to send the photos of Middelburg.

Ru