Our boat has a great refrigerator and freezer area, as the Manta's were designed with a cruising couple in mind. Ours has been a bit too warm lately, and we decided to have a tech come check out our system and look at the two AC units while he was here. There is nothing I hate worse than to call in a specialist, I have to believe everything they say, and that has, for me anyway, proven itself in the past to be a problem. I have been told so many times, such unbelievable bullshit, that I am now skeptical, scarred and jaded. OK, I have some trust issues. But for sure, if someone you might give money to for a job, says 'Trust me, you need to ...' that means that you can't. Trust them that is. Anyway, the cold wasn't colder, and the AC systems keep turning off when they are on the heat setting (it gets cold here in Miami!), so we called in a refrigeration tech. Man was he in a hurry, he was here for all of about 10 minutes. He put a TINY bit of freon in the refrigerator, and looked at the AC. The AC systems are dirty he said, the coils are covered with lint and need to be cleaned. He said "I'll be Back", like a plump Arnold in
The Terminator
and took off to fix something on a boat displayed at the Miami Boatshow. The fridge is colder, but in fairness, I moved the sensor lower in the compartment to see what the temp is near the bottom. We will see if Arnold ever comes back, he probably will once he realizes I never paid him! If not, I will consider him Terminated.
This time of year, the Miami Boat Show is the thing to do here in Miami, if you like boats. If not, well, you are weird.
This show has gotten so big, it is now scattered all over Miami and Miami Beach at four or five different locations that are nowhere near each other. Try and find them all, I dare you. And to make matters worse, the boatshow website, that you would think would be a reference source for all things boatshow related, is worthless. Really a bunch of crap. This is the reason we missed the cruisers party that the old Lats and Atts magazine had on Saturday night. The boatshow workers at the gate to the docks didn't know where the venders were either, they said that there weren't any this year. "Nope, this is it, just these boats here in the water".
Well, we missed it, and we were a bit miffed, but hey, what can you do. Get wings at Hooters and move on, I say.
Joyce handled the temporary setback better than I did.
We were back to see the boats the next day, and were drooling a lot. In the end, we decided that our boat is pretty good for us, and besides, we don't have a half a mill sitting around. So we saw plenty of cats that were way too big, way too expensive and way too cheap looking. What happened to wood? There wasn't much around, lots of very cheap travel trailerish paneling seems to have taken its place. The Lagoons were nice designs, but done with such cheap materials, they came of looking too fake inside. The panels were even chipping, exposing the pressboard under the paper coverings. Yuck.
The Pajot's were OK, but the fiberglass work was horrible. There was fiberglass mat print-through the gelcoat on every panel on the boats. And 700 grand for 44 feet of print-through fiberglass. Seems a bit too much for us.
We really liked the Robertson-Caine Leopard catamarans though. This was a surprise, but the new 40 footer was really nice. It's a big boat for 40 feet, nice gelcoat and glass work, and the interior was a step above the other two. Price? 350 to 450 depending on how much stuff you want. Arghh. Still too much.
We found the vendors at the Sailboat part of the show, and it was OK. We also saw Bob Bitchin, we last saw him on a charter in the Grenadines that we all shared. His old magazine Lat's and Att's, is now Cruising Outpost, and he was in their booth. See you out there Bob. Great name for a boat lover, ... Bob.
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This time of year, the Miami Boat Show is the thing to do here in Miami, if you like boats. If not, well, you are weird.
This show has gotten so big, it is now scattered all over Miami and Miami Beach at four or five different locations that are nowhere near each other. Try and find them all, I dare you. And to make matters worse, the boatshow website, that you would think would be a reference source for all things boatshow related, is worthless. Really a bunch of crap. This is the reason we missed the cruisers party that the old Lats and Atts magazine had on Saturday night. The boatshow workers at the gate to the docks didn't know where the venders were either, they said that there weren't any this year. "Nope, this is it, just these boats here in the water".
Well, we missed it, and we were a bit miffed, but hey, what can you do. Get wings at Hooters and move on, I say.
Joyce handled the temporary setback better than I did.
We were back to see the boats the next day, and were drooling a lot. In the end, we decided that our boat is pretty good for us, and besides, we don't have a half a mill sitting around. So we saw plenty of cats that were way too big, way too expensive and way too cheap looking. What happened to wood? There wasn't much around, lots of very cheap travel trailerish paneling seems to have taken its place. The Lagoons were nice designs, but done with such cheap materials, they came of looking too fake inside. The panels were even chipping, exposing the pressboard under the paper coverings. Yuck.
The Pajot's were OK, but the fiberglass work was horrible. There was fiberglass mat print-through the gelcoat on every panel on the boats. And 700 grand for 44 feet of print-through fiberglass. Seems a bit too much for us.
We really liked the Robertson-Caine Leopard catamarans though. This was a surprise, but the new 40 footer was really nice. It's a big boat for 40 feet, nice gelcoat and glass work, and the interior was a step above the other two. Price? 350 to 450 depending on how much stuff you want. Arghh. Still too much.
We found the vendors at the Sailboat part of the show, and it was OK. We also saw Bob Bitchin, we last saw him on a charter in the Grenadines that we all shared. His old magazine Lat's and Att's, is now Cruising Outpost, and he was in their booth. See you out there Bob. Great name for a boat lover, ... Bob.
.JPG)
