Miami Boat Show

     At breakfast, we discovered that a good number of the cruisers were heading up to the boat show. They warned us that if we bought new boats we would need to repack everything before our window on Monday!   

      Electronics are wonderful. . . usually. . . except when it decides to take us though the stop and go traffic of Route 1 instead of 95.  As a result, it was a 2 hour ride instead of one, but when your with friends and on permanent vacation, well, who cares!  We still were able to get good parking spots at the American Airlines Arena and hop onto the water taxi within 10 minutes. (Thanks, Martha, for printing out our tickets before we left “home.”)

     We made plans to meet up with Jerry before we entered the show.  He and Jeanne decided to escape the cold and spend time in Florida. Jeanne had already made other plans so we only had Gerry.  While waiting for Gerry, we saw an octopus working its way around the sea wall. It was too fast to get a picture, but to see an octopus along the sea wall in downtown Miami. . .wow!

Strictly Sail

     Our first stop was the marina that housed Strictly Sail.  We were surprised that “the Second Largest Boat Show in the World” had so few sail boats. It has only about 1/6 the amount of sailboats as the Annapolis Boat Show and about ¼ the vendors.  We checked out the Catalina 445. This particular one was really loaded with radar, extra freezer, leather interior, full instrumentation, 6KW Panda,3 4D batteries (really BIG) and a bow thruster, plus show extras at a very appealing price. After packing our Catalina 335 for this cruise, we were really interested in storage and seating comfort. Provisioning would be great, but we would really have to look at storage with all Pete’s tool and the spare parts.  Besides, the mast height is 64’ and he has problems with our 54’ mast height now! After picking up some line and new seats, we met the group for lunch overlooking the marinas.  We all had “damn good” hamburgers.

Gerry, Pete, Dan, Johm Kathy, Betty and Martha

    After eating, we went our separate ways agreeing to meet later.  We went to the Convention Center.  Here is where we now understood “World’s Second Largest” came from.

The Topolov from a 007 Movie

One view of the Convention Center

  The entire place was full and it spilled outside.  Most of the exhibits were geared for motorboats and fishermen with sections for divers and a small area for sailors. Pete was able to pick up 2 siphons and I found a great all-in-one kitchen gadget. Then we needed to board the water taxi to get back to Strictly Sail to pick up our seat cushions and return to the group. The trip took 90 minutes.  The bus from the convention center was a 40 minute wait. The bus then waited for a bridge to open.  Then we had to wait for the water taxi.  The water taxi ride then had to complete the circuit to the In the Strictly Motor Boat area, before returning to the Arena parking.  The best part of the show is the Brokers Boats, which require another bus ride. This is the area with the mega yachts.  None of our group made it to that area.

     We headed back to Marina Del Mar and Sharkey’s Friday Fish Fry. It has the reputation of being the best in the area.  We arrived around 8PM.  After waiting 40 minutes we were finally seated. The fish was definitely worth waiting for.  Unfortunately, everything else left a lot to be desired.

    All in all is was a very memorable day. . .and no repacking of a new boat will need to be completed before we make the window!

 ~  ~ (\_~ ~ ~     Kathy and Pete