But who should save the Boat Show for us? West Marine. We scored great deals on both a new anchor and 300 feet of chain to tie it to. We also ran across some good quality snorkel gear. We have no idea if we got a good deal on the snorkel gear. We didn't do much research prior. But the masks fit great and all the gear will transfer over to scuba if we do decide to stay underwater for awhile.
Boat show schwag:
- Rocna 33kg anchor (73lbs of anchory goodness!)
- 350 feet of galvanized 5/16"HT ACCO chain
- snorkel gear - masks, fins and snorkels
- Go Anywhere Chairs
- Douglas Guide to the North Coast of British Columbia
We also got some really eye opening quotes on new sails. Ours are sneaking past 15 years old. They're heavy cruising dacron sails but their better days are behind them. We expected new sails to put us back to the tune of $12K. On the contrary, some highly regarded sail lofts gave us quotes in the $7K range. Hello World might be getting some new propulsion.
We've also been scouring the corners of the interwebs for deals and ran across a few.
Internet schwag:
- Garmin 4208 chartplotter
- Advanced Elements inflatable kayak (thanks Carl and Anne!!!)
- LED interior lights (Sensibulb LED's)*
Shopping days aren't done. We've lots more stuff to get our grubby hands on.
Up next:
- sails?
- LED anchor/tri-color light
- propane sniffer
- Garmin 18HD radar
- dinghy (hoping we can score one on Craigslist, we won't be ponying up for a new one)
* These are the single most badasstic LED's we've ran across. They are bright and warm. I put them in while Christy was gone. She came back and didn't notice I put them until I told her. But best of all, they draw less than 200 milliamps. Our halogen bulbs drew 5X more power than these schnazzy little bulbs. They are expensive ($40 each) but should have a long life. We found ourselves shopping replacement halogens a lot and at $12/pop they're not exactly economical.
8 comments:
Aha, I thought you already owned The Worst Idea in the Room. I'm glad Hello World will have a friend. You know how people give a solitary horse a goat for company? I think of a dinghy as a little companion for a boat.
Plus it doubles as a guest room.
....suggested dinghy name: GOAT.
Ridiculous and awesome. I like it.
....oooo, or DONKEY??
Sounds like some excellent purchases, guys. I particularly like the Rocna idea; that might be on my list next time I do any serious outfitting - love those vids the Rocna guys put out. 80 degrees here in San Diego today - let me know when you get closer. :-)
Take care! TT
Good dinghy ideas, kids.
TT - we'll give you a shout when we're down your way. It's pretty likely we'll be killing some time in San Diego waiting for the hurricane season to pass.
Don't you already have a propane sniffer? Right between your eyes and mouth?
My mustache has no propane detection properties that I'm aware of.
Thanks for the link to the LED's think I'll order a few right now. We are also shopping for a dinghy, not much for sale here in Tx though, may have to wait until FL to pick up one, much better prices. We are also looking at the Rocna and looking for a new chartplotter - why did you decide on the 4208? I haven't even started comparing yet...
Hey Ken! I highly recommend the Sensibulb LED's. We completely forgot about them after we installed them. Can't tell the difference between them and the halogens we had.
We are having a really hard time finding a reasonably priced dinghy made of hypalon. Plenty of PVC ones around, though.
Can't wait to actually set the Rocna. I'm feeling a lot better about our anchor situation now.
As for the 4208, our decision was mostly driven by radar, actually. We didn't set out to get a chartplotter, we wanted a good radar with a good display. It just so happens that the Garmin HD radars use a Garmin chartplotter to display on and for about the same (actually a little less) price as any other radar + display package. Plus, the radar overlays on the charts. AND. If you get a 4208 vs. a 4008, you get electronic charts for the whole U.S. It costs an extra $200 but way worth it for the amount of charts you get. However, keep in mind where you're going to install it. It's pretty deep for an LCD screen. We're putting it on a swing arm on the bulkhead so we can use it inside and outside.
We initially focused on Furuno but they are really expensive. Never heard a bad word about them though. I've heard sketchy things about Raymarine durability. Lots of folks told us it tends to be consumer grade stuff. Garmin is still pretty new to radar to know how they hold up but given they make systems for aircraft, I figured they had to be pretty decent on reliability. Plus, their GPS's have always been rock solid.
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