I can and will. They charge high end prices and provide very average work. I am not saying they are bad, just not that great. I have had stuff done over the years (on various boats) and they do it and it has worked out ok.
A relatively recent example is that I had them order and install a Wallas for my CD22 and I swear they had the blind guy do it. It was not a nice clean install and I had to fix many of the little aesthetic things that their tech just didn't give a hoot about. Don't get me wrong, they did ok, I just expect a professional job when being charged a professional price.
Another time one of my honda 45s on my CD 22 was running very rough at idle and they recommend about 400 bucks worth of stuff (so called "needed" maintenance that they just had to do before they got around to really fixing it) such as a valve adjustments, compression test, and a carb sync. On the tech notes it said it ran great and sent it out the door. Three hours after picking it up and putting it in the water in Seward it wouldn't even idle...... Being a former auto-tech I have since worked on it when time allowed and found it was simply a carb problem so I put a new carb on cylinder #1. Problem cured, but the 400 dollars I spent at Alaska Mining and Diving did nothing to address the root of the problem.
On a different occasion I took the boat there for winterization, an oil change, fuel filter change, and they broke one of the sliding front windows. They were very apologetic and replaced it without any hassle at all. They also did a nice clean job on the work they did this time.
I have also brought other boats that I have owned in the past to them and sometimes they are really good. When I had my old bayliner with an inboard they seemed to be right on with all the outdrive problem I was having. They always fixed her up good.
The bottom line is that I think they try to do decent work. Sometimes it works out that they do and sometimes it doesn't and I think it really depends on what it is. If I were you and had some time and knowledge, I would seriously considering learning how to do your own stuff. As you have probably already found out, all repair work in Alaska is an "iffy" proposition.
Just my 2 cents.
