What a Difference a Week Makes!

What a difference a week makes!!  The great dock crash repair is complete and the results are much better than I had dared hope.  It looks like it never happened.  Suddenly La Paz is a much better place!  Here's the story:

As I completed the structural work from inside, I continued to talk to Arturo (in my very limited Spanish and virtually no English), a local who does boat work here on the dock daily, about hiring him and his friend, who was a painter, to do the final filling, fairing and painting outside.  When I was finally able to get a quote from him, it was only 4,000 pesos, the eqivalent of about $200.  I figured I had little to lose and was burned out from two weeks of miserable grinding and 'glassing.  At that price, my expectations were not high.  I figured if it was really bad I could always paint a shark mouth or smiley face over it.  The work started with Arturo and his friend sanding down the high spots with my battery-powered grinder.  The next step was filling with a two-part polyester resin marine filler.  That was followed by the painter hand sanding the filler with a sanding block, filling again and sanding again.  It was obvious he knew what he was doing.  He had eyes in his hands.  Finally, a thick coat of what might have been gelcoat was skillfully troweled on.  The next day the painter hand sanded most of that off, working down to fine sanding. While that was happening, a third man was brought down to the dock.  He was the color-matching master.  He spent the better part of an hour mixing and testing paint color until he was satisfied.  Next, two coats of primer were air-brushed on the bow.  After that, wet sanding with very fine paper.  Finally, air-brushing two coats of color that matched virtually perfectly.  Looked great even before the final buffing out! 

About halfway through the job, Arturo asked me if it would be okay to get an additional 500 pesos. (I think he realized he had underestimated how much would be involved.)  Of course I had no problem with that given that at $225 it was still far less than the job was worth.  I ended up giving them 6,000 pesos (about $300) which was still amazingly cheap by U.S. standards.  But at 50% more than the original quote, they were happy.  I hope it helps make it a happy holiday for them.

The more I talk with Mexicans and see how hard many of them work just to get the basic necessities and how warm, happy and friendly they are, the more I like and admire them.  Whenever I comment to one of them about working hard, they all respond with essentially the same phrase:  “No trabajo, no comida!,” which I would translate as “You don't work, you don't eat!”  Amazingly, it's always said with a smile, not bitterness.

While Arturo's team was working on the bow repair, I took care of my own tasks inside.  First was cleaning up the mess left from the 'glass work.  Lots of vacuuming (with a new vacuum I had to buy to replace a friend's that I had burned out) followed by wiping down every surface, book and video in the v-berth.  So far I've spent almost two days cleaning up and I'm not done yet.  I also managed to take care of a few essential tasks on the to-do list:  repairing the toilet, reconnecting and securing the transmission shift cable and replacing the frayed alternator belt on the engine.  When re-securing the shift cable ends, I added a dab of epoxy to the screw heads so that they can't vibrate loose again.  I'd much rather have to grind off a couple of screw heads (should that become necessary) than have another dock crash!

Carol is scheduled to arrive here in a couple of days, and I'm very much looking forward to enjoying the area rather than just grinding away.  What a difference a week makes!!!