Impressions from the Providence Boat Show

I visited the boat show Saturday evening. It was awfully quiet. I counted only 14 people in Charlie Soares seminar on striped bass fishing, which historically draws big crowds. Charlie, as usual offered an informative and entertaining program. The show floor space was reduced and I would say that exhibitors outnumbered visitors. One difference I noticed compared to past shows was I didn't see exhibitors asking visitors to remove their street shoes before going aboard. I think the salesmen were just happy to see a warm body, and weren't about to discourage visitors.

I had a pleasant chat with Joe Burke, publisher of Points East about his magazine, which he said is doing well despite tough economic conditions.

SafeSea was showing some very impressive video of rough water rescue / recovery operations around Newport.

I held on tight to my wallet this year. I bought a cup of coffee and paid $1 for 3 hours parking at the Providence Place Mall. That's a huge reduction compared to last year, when I renewed 2 boat registrations, updated my SafeSea membership, bought a $99 set of Bad Dog drill bits.
Chuck