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.