Fixing the outside storage bay doors

The last day of another month – got to remember to back up the laptop tonight.

I got up a while ago and discovered Bill asleep on the recliner in the living room! Guess I must have had a Loud night and drove him out. When I woke him up – he looked at me said “Um” and went right to the bed. Be interesting what he’ll say when he finally wakes up!

Yesterday was a busy day for us. First off we will be staying here in San Carlos another week! And why is that you ask? Well – it has to do with work on the Alfa. Let me regress a year. When we were in Huatabampito last year we had the bottom of the Alfa painted. The guys worked hard on it sanding all the blisters off the storage doors, treating those areas and painting. Well it didn’t work – the blisters all reappeared and started peeling again. So that brings us to San Carlos – there is a marina here and a lot of guys who work on boats – with the fiberglass and gel coats. Soooo the painter who used to work on boats and now works for the RV park took a look at our blistered paint and thought he could fix the problem. This was last week. He sanded the blisters right down to the fiberglass –see picture.

Put some coating on and repainted. Problem solved right. Nope by the next day the blisters were coming up in the new paint. 

This is a problem a lot of Alfa owners have had. In fact there is a class action suit about it...So now what? Well the painter took one of the compartment doors completely off and apart – the interior insulation was wet!  Soooo he took the door home to dry it out and them refiberglassed it and repainted it. Actually Bill took him and the door to his house as his truck is laid up. Now it looks like that might work. So now all the storage compartment doors are off and gone to workshop.

Friday the painter was supposed to bring that door back, but he didn’t make it here. So yesterday morning he was here bright and early letting Bill know the progress he was making on the one door. It was ready to be painted and if Bill would come to his house/shop in the afternoon it would be ready. As the painter turned to go Bill asked him how did you get here today? “I took the bus.”

“How will you go pick up the paint and get home?

“I’ll take the bus.”

So we ended up taking him to the paint store and home. An interesting trip. Yesterday morning I posted a couple of pictures of the sunrise with all the fog over the hills. As we headed into Guaymas the fog was still around. A thick heavy bank of it. It hung over the Gulf the whole day.

The painter directed us to the paint store – they went inside and I stayed in the car just watching people. At one point the owner, painter and Bill came outside – they were checking the color of the paint chip to match it. 

Found out later the paint was matched and mixed by hand. No computers putting in a drip or drop of colors.

While they were inside I was watching this man sitting on the sidewalk. He has a Christmas ornament tied around his neck and he had several more small ones he was carefully putting into a plastic bag and eventually put in his backpack. Here is looking at some kind of electrical connection. It too went in the backpack.

Across the street the owner of another paint store came out to sweep the street.

After getting the paint we took the painter home with instructions to pick him and the door up at 1:30. Then we promptly got lost coming out of his neighborhood. Took us a while to find the main street – In fact I turned the GPS on to help. Thank you Gertrude.

We got home but turned right around and went out to breakfast.

After breakfast we took a ride heading back towards Guaymas. Passing around the bay we stopped to watch some dolphins playing. Sorry the pictures aren’t better – they are hard to catch. They were only about thirty feet from shore.

Heading into town I saw that a Christmas Tree had been put up in the area where we saw a fountain last week.

By then we’d wasted enough time and so we headed towards the painters again. Lots of automotive stuff hanging on a fence for sale. I think some of them are dash covers, seat covers and floor mats. One stop shopping.

A little further down the highway was a very nasty tope [speed bump on steriods] Everyone has to slow WAY down to go over it. So the vendors get a good chance to show off their wares. These two are selling fresh shrimp. Big ones – bodies about 10 inches long.

On the other side was a man selling fresh fish. They are hanging just to the right.

We found the painter’s house with no problems. Bill went to check on the door and I stayed in the car. Soon a couple of young girls came out of the house next door and started to talk to me. With their limited English and my nonexistent Spanish it was a funny conversation. They were sisters and have three brothers who live in the US. I told them I was from Indiana and tried to explain where that is. Then we talked about the weather – hot here and cold there with snow. We were doing pretty good until I took my sunglasses off and kind of surprised them. For some reason yesterday my hazel eyes were very green. They’d never seen green eyes before so they both had to get a good look – kind of funny – our noses practically touching and them giggling.

About then Bill came out and took me back to the shop to check out the door. Looked good. So we load it and the painter in the car and brought it back to the RV. A lot of discussing going on that I couldn’t follow. But now know that it entailed doing all the doors with blisters. So they all had to come off – and then we took the painter back home. About a hour or so later he came back with a friend and a pickup to pick up the doors – no way they’d fit in Willie. After they got the doors loaded up they noticed the pick up had a flat tire. Bill loaned them his compressor to put air in it and as were doing that we headed out to dinner with friends.

Hopefully it held until they got it home. So here we sit with all the storage compartment doors gone. I sure hope this fixes the problem for good.

So we had a busy day yesterday – driving back and forth – and ate out twice – there goes my plans to start cooking – aw gee.

Today should be interesting too – going to look at a boat our friends are thinking about buying.