So if you live anywhere in the Puget Sound area media market my post title has just set off that cursed jingle from the commercials in your head where you won’t be able to shake it off until sometime in March. You’re welcome!
It’s that time of year again, though, and everyone is getting excited about the Great Seattle Boat Show. Three Sheets has a whole separate blog dedicated to the event, which will have updates throughout the week that the show is going on. I plan to check it regularly for hot tips on what to check out next. And Navagear’s Tim Flanagan has an unusual floating perspective on the Lake Union portion of the show (Boats Afloat) on his blog.
I just picked up our tickets today. If you happen to be a BoatUS member, you can get a modest discount by going through their site for the purchase (and you still get the free Qwest parking pass with the deal).
Oh, a Boat Show commercial just came on as I was typing this. Apparently it’s no longer the “Great Seattle Boat Show” but the “Big Seattle Boat Show.” I’m keeping the blog title, though… it’s the same jingle.
The show is always exciting, particularly coming in the middle of winter as it does, when most of us have been off the water for a few months and the itch to get out there again is reaching a fever pitch. I’m a little less into it this year, though. Last year, and the year before, we were deeply involved in planning for significant trips coming up the next summer, and we had both budget and motivation to take advantage of boat show deals for outfitting. There were also many mysteries of medium-distance cruising still in our minds, and the many informative seminars put on by people who had been there and done that were high on our list to feed our hunger for information.
(The commercial came on again just now. Funny how that jingle gets stuck up there, isn’t it?)
This year, we don’t have anything major planned for next year (which isn’t to say that it won’t happen, just that we’ll be poorly prepared for it if it does) and we have a lot of other things going on here in the next two weeks. So, we’re focused on other things at the moment, and the boats and exhibitors at the show all seem as if they are a long way away from where we are right now.
We have a plan to kindle our excitement though, which is to go for our first day with some friends who are looking to buy a boat and retire soon to go cruising. They are reformed boaters who sold their last boat long enough ago that they have forgotten all the reasons why they shouldn’t buy another, and we expect the enthusiasm to be infectious. We’re counting on it, anyway; I have to go back to our boat afterward and find the energy to dig into a fistful of projects that have to be finished before we head north in two weeks for Vancouver.