Lesson Learned: Paying Upfront

August 2021, we received a recommendation on a gentleman that was known to perform brightwork and other topside tasks. We viewed some of his work and were excited to get in touch with some work we wanted done on the boat. We later contacted him and was given a quote to sand and repaint our topside decks with new non-skid paint. The quote for the topsides came to roughly $3500, with an additional $1000 if he were to include the cockpit. This person, we shall call him F__, assured us…

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Post-Hurricane Michael Sunset

Tonight’s sunset literally had Shannon call me out of the rack to come see.  After being up all night on anchor watch during Hurricane Michael’s passage through North Carolina, and our visit by Chuck Courtney (EDIT: 2019Jun25 PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING OUR EXPERIENCE WITH THIS TECHNICIAN), I was beat tired.  Shannon was down cooking up some dinner and she hollered, “You have GOT to come see this!” Our first sunset since Hurricane Michael did not disappoint.  We have seen many spectacular sunsets since bringing Banjo to…

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Perkins 4.236 Engine Repair: Water in Oil

Background A few weeks ago before Hurricane Florence hit New Bern, we had a problem starting our Perkins 4.236 Engine.  The starter would barely turn over and then stop.  I’m learning, but I am not a good engine guy yet, but I am slowly learning how to do some basic Perkins 4.236 Engine Repair myself.  We had a friend look at it and they noticed that we had more oil on the dipstick than usual.  A LOT more. A couple of people looked at it and the proposal was given…

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