T'was a dead calm, cool night followed by an equally calm daybreak on the first day of the boat show. Today is VIP day which, thanks to the kindness and generosity of our friends Bradd and Maeve from Sampatecho and Cruising Solutions we have exhibitors passes which will get us in. Today is a desirable day to be in since it will be much less crowded. Apparently the tickets are forty dollars normally and are mostly handed out by yacht brokers to people they feel have a serious interest in buying one of their boats. We, on the other hand are simply members of the great unwashed relying on the kindness of our friends to short cut the queue.

There are a number of booths that we really want to see but even more so we want to see the speaker's list. This is the place to get to see a lot of the big names in yachting and hear them speak on a number of topics and ask them questions. For instance, last time we were here we heard Donald Street give a presentation and Alan and Heather spoke of hearing and meeting the Pardys. It's a matter of picking your subject material and being in the hall as it is all covered in the price of the ticket.

As far as things we are looking for:

- the quiet blades for the Air-X wind generator
- a new control panel for the wind generator. They make one that does both solar and wind.
- any deal on a head
- look at bigger alternator
- dingy nav lights

Well. We are back from the VIP day at the show and wow, talk about sensory overload! So many vendors and so many boats! Of the list above the only thing that we really bought at this point was the dingy nav light. The other stuff I have taken an appetite suppressant and another pill to calm down a wee bit and decided to get them down range. There really isn't much to save by buying them at this show. The only advantage of coming here is to actually see all of the products and check out anything new. Boat show pricing is almost non existent which isn't really all that surprising given the cost that the vendors must incur to get here and get a booth. There are some interesting seminars coming up on Saturday which I think Barb and I will attend most if not all of them. Lest you think that we didn't buy anything today the Sailrite booth got some shekels from us. They had a really innovative tool for putting snap fittings into canvas and Barb got a great deal on some material. The were one of the few boots with some real deals, one of which is for industrial grade sewing machines which we are thinking of getting to augment our current one that only does straight stitching. We need one that will zig zag so we can do sail repairs.

We had a visit after the show from some new friends that met in Shelburne who are also on a trek to the Bahamas and had a great time chatting and catching up on who did hat and when. They are anchored in Back Creek and have been there for two weeks now. We also had a visit from Jean of Otter II. Apparently their boat is up on the hard at a marina and they are getting the work done to make the repairs so they can be back under way again. The damage was not as much as they feared with some to the rudder and prop and a little to the hull with most confined to the keel. Thank heavens it was built as strongly as it is.