Reinventing oneself

Meet Mary. When she retired a few years ago, she went looking for a hobby and promptly found it by way of reenacting life on board of a 3-mast tall ship for the benefit of tourists and sailboat aficionados.

I caught her coming off the boat after it docked. I had watched her clamber up the 25-foot tall middle mast to the crow's nest, and just had to talk to her. She is one of 300 volunteers who work on the ship, after getting 57 hours of training on everything from maintenance to high water rescues.

When asked if scaling these heights at almost age 70 is intimidating, she said: "I used to be scared of climbing a ladder to clean out the gutters; now, the only trepidation is when I take that first step backwards off the crow's nest to descend. I just love what I do."

And it shows! A beautiful woman, don't you think?