Day 110 Thursday, October 10th

Day 110 Thursday, October 10^th

We wake up to rain and cold.  We should have known as there is a storm brewing on the eastern seaboard which is the reason we decided to rent a car and attend the show as we would just be holed up somewhere on the boat.  Julie brought her rain coat and umbrella, but Dawson did not!

Off we go to the boat show which we have never been to.  Our list is about 30 items long.  We are waiting at the gates for the show to open in the pouring rain.  The show is all outdoors, but with some tents for the suppliers set up.  Our focus is the suppliers, not the big beautiful boats we could climb on.

From the seminar yesterday, we have added an EPIRB to our safety list.  There goes another $700.  We also now also feel we should have a single sideband radio.  Those cost about $3800. First priority is to find out if we can get our chartplotters software upgraded.  Answer is no, so now we are shopping for a new one of those too.

We wandered in and out of tents, buying as we went along.  Julie got foul weather gear, we got charts and waterway guides for the journey, we chatted about single sideband radios, but decided in the end after chatting to more people that they would go satellite phone if they were starting out, so we will just get a single sideband receiver which is much less expensive. 

Dawson and the many packages so far!

 

We met up with Bob and Mona for lunch at Pussers.Bob and Mona are also on the rally and have a caliber 40 LRC same year as ours.We had a great chat and will enjoy meeting up with them along the way.

We only have about 3 more hours of shopping in the pouring rain so hopped to it and bought a chartplotter, and sandals for Dawson, polaroids for both of us.We also got a teak magazine rack, welcome mat, ice cube bags, and the EPIRB that will need to be programmed for Canada.

We were pooped by 5, but kept pushing to squeeze out the last dollars.  We did tour on 2 boats, but none we liked any better than ours.

Salty Dawg reception

By 6:00 we were off to the Salty dawg reception.  Free drinks and dinner.  Can’t go too wrong there.  We chated for 2 hours or so, networking with other salty sailors.  It was a great way to find similar boaters.  Back to the hotel by 9:00.  We have a very early morning tomorrow.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson