Lightning Jack’s Marina

I have lived in the area for 30 years and have used most of the marina’s on the manasquan. I used Lighning Jack for 18 months and got to know it and the people who run it very well. The bottom line is that there are many marina’s in the area that will likely give you a much better boating experience. I will not come back.
The woman who basically runs the office is Sue. She does a great job and will make you feel right at home. No problems here!
Carl, the marina mechanic, is extremely unpredictable. One moment he is friendly and helpful, and the next he will make things very difficult for you.
Keep in mind, if you have a problem with your boat Carl is your only option. You will not be permitted to do any work yourself, and you will not be permitted to let an outside contractor do the work either. It’s use Carl on his schedule or tow your boat somewhere else.
Carl and his son winterized my boat. This service included shrink wrapping the entire boat, a procedure which required first removing its outriggers. After the storage period when the shrink wrap was removed I found one of the outriggers broken. the problem obviously occurred when the outriggers were removed from the boat.
When I reported it to Carl he explained that he remembers it was a cold day at the end of the season when he winterized the boat and he didn’t remember what happened to the outrigger which was absolutely in perfect shape when I brought the boat to the marina.
I realize it had been a while since the boat was taken out of the water but that’s the nature of winter storage. The customer does not get to look under the shrink wrap to be surevthe job was done right. Don’t you expect some sort of documentation, or at least a phone call if something is broken by the mechanic when work is done? To make matters worse, I clearly remember calling Carl the day after the boat was wrapped to ask how things went. That was the time to tell me they had a problem removing the outriggers and one was broken in the process.
When reported, there was not even an effort to help me find a replacement part i would need to fix the outrigger as Carl was not accepting any responsibility. He simply explained that he did not remember and it wasn’t his problem because it happened a long time ago.
Issue 2
After the storage period when the boat was unwrapped I asked Carl to put a charge on the batteries. This was a Tuesday. Carl said he would nt have time until the following Tuesday. So I came to the Marina myself and when I tried to connect a battery charger Carl told me I was not permitted to do so unless I stayed with the boat while it charged! I was not permitted to o o lunch and then come back the same day.
When I reluctantly agreed to stay with the boat I plugged my extension cord into an outlet that i saw another boater was using the day before, and the outlet was now dead.
When I asked Carl if he could check the breaker he first told me there was no breaker and he was sure it wasn’t a problem with the outlet.
So I went o the hardware store to buy an ac receptacle tether and returned with roof that the outlet power had been turned off. Carl told me he knew the breaker was okay and now said someone must have dug up and cut an underground wire. The problem with this was all you had to do look is look up to the top of the pole to see the power wire coming from the top of the pole, not underground. It clearly felt like there was an intent not to help. I’m not saying that Carl turned off the power to make things difficult for me but that wouldnt uprise me a bit. He was trying to get me to hire him to gt the bat running and had quoted me $ 1000 to do so.
The only way Iwas able to plug in my battery charger was to buy two 100 foot extensions and then plug into a receptacle more than 200 feet away and then sit with the boat while the battery charged.
The owner of the marina is another problem character. I think his name is john. When I told him I decided to have my boat towed elsewhere to have the work done he inssted that I use Carl instead. When I explained that I had spoken to Carl and that Carl said he could not finish the work in my required time frame he insisted that I change my timeframe. It was one of those phone calls that made me just shiver inside. I was stuck in the mania with a boat that really needed nothing more than charging the batteries so i could test the pumps, lights, and electronics, and then to be put back into the water and I was at their mercy. As a result, i missed out on an entire boating weekend and could not wait to leave.
I had the boat towed mots other marina. The second marina charged the batteries and the engines started right up. They then recommended that I change some fluids and filters, gave me an estimate, and allowed me to make my own decision.. Isn’t that the way things are supposed to work?