When I was a little girl my family owned a beach cottage off of one of the finger canals on the circle to the left as you go over the bridge into Atlantic Beach from Morehead City. ​From a small age, it was our custom that my mother and I spent most of the summer at the cottage.

 

When I was about the age of nine, my father bought his first, of many, cabin cruisers. My mother and I stared in abject horror. It was covered in green slime, split and silvered, corroded and rusty bright work. The salon smelled atrocious from years of cigarettes and whisky.​As my Dad sprang to the dock, he exclaimed, "Motor runs great --"​

 

He had a plan for me that summer...from late May until August, while he was away on business, I cleaned and scraped and polished. When he returned, I passed tools and learned all about bilge pumps, electrical inverters, and diesel motors.​ Slowly the El Mar began to reveal her original beauty. At the end of the summer we tooled around in the Sound a few times, and the El Mar got noticed and then he sold her.  This became our tradition for many summers to come. ​And so began my love affair with old boats, and their restoration.   

 

Later, I began to specialize in cabin redesign and canvas fabrication at the insistence of my grandmothers (who thought this was a more lady like pursuit). One grandmother was the manager of the alterations department at Miller & Rhodes at Crabtree Mall in Raleigh for over 30 years, and the other who could often be found at her sewing machine on Sunday afternoons after church and who, though a successful law office manager, would often say that if she could find a way to make a living sewing she would do it. You could say it is in my genes. 

 

In 1980 I moved to Florida to attended college and university. I fell in love with a St. Pete boy who loved old boats too. After college I became a local freelance journalist and together we opened Professional Boat and Yacht Services of St. Petersburg -- a one stop shop for all aspects of boat and Yacht restoration.​

 

In 2017, I returned to my home town -- Raleigh and opened a VRBO in a historic home owned by my family and tried my hand at several other pursuits but my love has always been boats -- so today I am happy to offer my expertise and skill to the Captains and Skippers of the North Carolina coast and Piedmont.​