Joe, good luck with the boat. As far as lowering the mast is concerned, you could lower over the bow or toward the stern. If you lower to the stern you'll need some type of a mast crutch in the stern of the boat to keep the mast from laying on the cabin which could put a lot of strain on the mast Tabernacle. It may be possible to use a short step ladder roped to the stern somehow or you could take two 2X4s and bolt them together to resemble a pair of scissors, and rope it to the stern inside the cockpit somehow. The mast will sit in the apex of the two boards. You would need to eye it for height off the cabin's closed companionway hatch. You would want the mast just high enough so it clears the cabin roof and low enough to reach up and take the mast out of the crutch. What you could do is attach a sheave to the bow plate in a hole behind the fore stay, and run a 65 or 70'X 3/8" line through it and attach it to the Jib shackle on the halyard. Raise the Jib Halyard all the way up and cleat it off at the mast. Loosen the back stay or the fore stay and pull the slack out of the rope and take it around the back of the mast and over the goose neck fitting so it doesn't slide down, and tie the rope off to one of the bow cleats. Then you can unhook your fore stay and bungee it to the mast for now. If your tabernacle has two pins holding it, you will need to remove the forward pin before you do any of this. Make sure that the wind is coming directly from the stern and that the boat is level from side to side. Undo the rope from the bow cleat while holding the tension and get into position behind the mast, standing on the closed companionway hatch. Then lower the mast back very slow. The rope is only helpful to a certain point and the rest is up to you. The mast only weighs about 60 lbs. I used to raise and lower my mast by myself this way and did it for years.
If you have a roller furler, have someone hold it in line with the mast as it goes down. A roller furler can throw the mast off balance if it is not handled carefully and we don't want any accidents. That's about it. Good luck and if you have any questions just fire away.
Joe