The wife & I snuck out from under the normal chaos at our house for a few hours and went to the Miami Boat show. We go every 5-6 years or so. They bill themselves as the largest boat show in the world and I believe it. The show is in three separate locations. The first is in Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center both indoor, outdoor in the open and outdoor under a huge tent. There are two other locations for boats in the water - one for power and one for sail. The show ran this year from the 17th to the 21st from 10am to 9 or 10 pm. If you went every day and really humped it you could not see all there was. I get saturated after 3 hours or so.<br /><br />It is an expensive show to go to but then everything associated with boats gets expensive. There was a $15 admission charge and $10 for parking. That $40 for the two of us just got us in the door. After walking around for an hour or so we stopped and got two small cups of lemonade and one pretzel - Would you believe $9.00. A 12 oz long neck Bud was $6.00.<br /><br />I was looking at color chartplotters and was interested in what the boat show prices were. I had my eye on either a Garmin 172C or a Lowrance 3500. Both worked out to a bit over $600.00 with the map chip - a bit of a sticker shock. I pretty much know where I am when I am out and pretty much know where I want to go. I concluded that it was not worth $600.00 to pin it down to 10' so will wait another 5-10 years until the prices come down some more. Kind of interesting side note - when I got home I got on the web and found comparable prices to what I saw at the show.<br /><br />The neatest boat I saw was this one:<br /><br />
<br /><br />They had three boats there and had to borrow two from their owners as they had "sold out" their on hand inventory at the previous boat show. These rigs take around 2,000 man hours to build and are finished with a minimum of 12 coats of varnish. Even at that they should be stored under cover or the sun will do a number on the finish in short order. The craftsmanship was flawless.
<br /><br />Some folks I know went to the show.. They ate the sausage & pepper gyros.. They spent that night hugging the toilet calling for Ralph...