Boat Show

Our first taste of Autumn temperatures this year was at the Annapolis boat show a couple of weeks ago. We were excited to go out there and help our friends from Pegasus Yachts show off their boat for Americans for the first time.

It was surprising to me that a lot of Americans had seen magazine writeups. Lots of the people who came aboard recognized Miha from the videos on their web site.

Annapolis from the air on boat show Thursday

We flew in Thursday, and right as we landed, I got a text excitedly telling us that Pegasus was showing. It wasn't from a number that I had in my phone, but the intersection of people who had a Tampa area code and who would also be at the boat show gave me 90% confidence that it was our friends Ben and/or Francine. Ben bought the Beneteau Velvet Elvis from us and was great to hang out with during that process. He and Francine came to New Orleans and went sailing with me back in the Spring.

I allowed for a slight chance that it was Leo -- the broker who sold us the Beneteau Velvet Elvis. I'm just noticing the symmetry there. In an hour, we were walking over to meet the mystery friends, and I was going to be pretty disappointed if it turned out to be Leo. Fortunately, it was Ben and Francine.

We got to catch up for a little while before Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I had to go meet the Pegasus team for dinner. We ate, and they were beat from a day of boat showing, so we crossed the street to go to a dive bar full of boat vendors, which is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

Dive bar full of boat people.

On Friday, we went to the show. I spent most of the day answering questions for boat shoppers and listening to them tell me how awesome my boat is. I enjoyed it so much that I didn't even take a break to eat. Ben and Francine were beat after their day at the show (there is a lot of walking), so an even bigger group of Pegasus people went to a wine bar, found they had crab to eat, and ended up staying a while.

Once the grown ups went home that night, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I went to another bar for a nightcap, and we met Béeri, a graduate student from Haiti at a small college in Annapolis that neither you nor I have ever heard of. We talked islands and rum, and now he's a good friend. I just got a text from him as I'm typing this.

Saturday was more of the same from the show, but I also found time to sneak off and visit the vendor booth for some of our boat parts. I wanted to have business cards of people I can call directly when shit breaks and I can't get answers through normal customer service.

Killer food at the Annapolis Yacht Club.

There is a yacht club right by the boat show, so as the crowds thinned and it got colder Saturday night, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I walked over there to see what was happening in college football. Staff and members were very nice, and their menu was .

The yact club bartender gave us the lowdown on where to get the best crab cakes. It was a place I remember being before, but I have no idea when.

I would have texted everyone to meet us there, except I'm a dumbass and I mixed up some numbers. I flipped Ben's number -- which I still hadn't entered with a name -- with Béeri's. I should have figured it out when the reply came back begging off until later due to homework. I know we talked about Ben being recently retired. But I just shrugged it off, figuring he encountered some products at the boat show that he wanted to read up on. It was a surprise when Béeri showed up for dinner, with a gift of Hatian rum for me to bring home. A pleasant one, but it still took me a while to figure out that I had been texting him and not Ben. I really am not very smart. This is the third time that I've been to the Annapolis Boat show, and it's been a lot of fun every time. I didn't get that many pictures, but here are a bunch more.

On our way out

I love a walkable town on a cool fall morning.

Show Pegasus

I kind of want to add one of these to my fleet.

The Ridiculously large Swan 70. See the human on the dock to get a sense of her size.

A cool thing about going in on a vendor pass is that you can be the first person to the shitter, thereby getting a clean one.

Another product that I really liked. I think I want to learn to sew.