We have been hauled out for a little over three weeks and half of the boat is down to aluminum. How depressing it is to watch the slow progress. In the first two week only 2 1/2 hours of work was done. The rest of the time was spent waiting for the sandblaster and sand.

There have been a number of problems with this job that at a glance seemed to the naked eye to be a quick and easy job. Hah!!!!!!!!!

The first problem as I mentioned above was getting the sand blaster and sand. The sand blaster showed up along with four bags of sand. Great...
Now we had to wait for hose. They had to find the hose in Tepic and get it delivered down to San Blas. Tepic is a two hour bus ride from San Blas.
We were really surprised that the next morning the hose was delivered. Wahoo!!!! Progress. Then Amondo (working yard foreman) informed us that he had to go to town this morning to find or have made a fitting to connect the hose. Again, we were pleasantly surprised when he returned after lunch (3:00 pm) with the fitting. Yahoo, now they can start sandblasting.

With all connections in place, it is time to test the sand blaster. The sand was dumped in and the protection gear donned. A hose was lead up to the deck and put into the companion way hatch to pressure the boat, as to not let any sand below. All deck hatches were closed and the stamoid bow cover was laid down on the deck and held into place with dive weights. The back companion way was closed and the sunbrella cover snapped down. The main companion hatch closed.

Now it is time to turn on the sand blaster. Whohoo!!!! It works, and then about fifteen minutes later it clogs up. This happened every fifteen minutes.
This went on for a few days, continuing to make adjustments on the blaster to get it just right for the sand. With in a couple of days all the sand was used and only about 1/8 of the boat was down to aluminum. Meanwhile ten more bags of sand were ordered. The ten bags of sand did arrive and used. Now all fourteen bags of sand have been used and one side is 3/4 complete aluminum. All they have left is used sand. They swept up the sand and put it back into the blaster and it would clog.

So it is on the hunt for a screen to sift the sand to re-use it. The sifting of the sand helped somewhat, now they could get an hour blasting before it clogged up. Yep, you got it. The search was on for a finer mesh screen.
Once the finer mesh screen arrived the girls (workers) started to sift the sand again. This was the key to keeping the sand blaster running.

The sand blasting was going so slow that Amondo decided to try chipping and found out the reason. In places like the bow it is about 1 1/4 inch thick of faring compound (bondo) as is evident in the photos below.

















We knew that there was faring compound (bondo if you will) on the boat. In our wildest dreams we NEVER imagined that it was this thick.

Talk about a can of worms that should have never been opened HERE. The quick look estimate was $1,000.00. Great estimate right. Well it has gone well beyond that and rightly so.

Amondo has been a joy to work with. He is honest and up front and explains everything. If a problems arises he shows you the problem and discusses his solution with you.

As an American we have been taught about being punctual. Our day starts at 8:00 am, lunch at 12:00 or 1:00, one hour lunch and off at 5:00pm. Down here in Mexico you are on Mahayana time. The girls Sandra and Patty arrive at about 9:30 and start sweeping up the sand into little piles to be sifted. Sand blasting starts about 11:00 am and lunch starts anywhere from 12:30 to 2:00, lunch is two hours so sand blasting begins again at about 3:00 pm and continues until about 5:30 to 6:00 pm.

We Americans have to learn the old adage "when in Rome do as the romans". It can be frustrating to say the least. But if that is your only problem then I believe it can be dealt with, all you need is a good shoulder to cry on or scream into a towel.