We had a nice experience with a couple of local guys doing deck jobs on boats. In Marina La Cruz, we saw these guys prepping a Peterson 44 for an entire deck paint job, while in the water. Bill and Kat are owners from Seattle. We were impressed with the results and the attention to detail that Adrian and Rodrigo, and their crew of 5 teens, showed on Island Bound. This big project was quoted $3500, probably a small fraction of what it would cost in the States.

Their resourcefulness is also noteworthy. When they are ready to spray, they load up the paint, equipment, generator and compressor on the deck and take the boat out in the middle of Banderas Bay, away from any vessel. Unfortunately, Rodrigo (the painting expert) is prone to sea sickness but he toughs it out.

Our cockpit sole looked good but the nonskid surface had worn out after 17 years, and when wet, it was real slippery. So we asked Adrian and Rodrigo to give us a quote. I thought it was a little high but after a few minutes we came to an agreement and the quality job got done on time.

But wait, there’s more! Rodrigo took the big old helm wheel, which the original paint had blistered badly, to his shop to refinish it. It is now perfect and shiny, no aluminum showing through. There is still more. We tried to remove some rust stains with FSR, but it actually bleached out the color on the deck. It looked blotchy. Using the same two-part paint as our cockpit, Rodrigo used a stringy kind of cheese cloth to blend in a match to the surrounding areas so you could not tell where the damaged surface was. It was like they wanted the boat to look Bristol as much as Cathy and I do. We were happy we got to meet them.

One last thing, they use a lot of blue masking tape. Maybe 3M is a stock to watch.