Friday, September 18, 2009

Where Did Everyone Go?


The Marine Trawler Owner Association (MTOA) northern rendezvous ended last night with an awards ceremony and party. Karen and I each received a highly coveted ruby pin. By this morning, most of the boats had disappeared.

Our presentation on ActiveCaptain went really well yesterday afternoon. There were some excellent questions and the response was wonderful. It's times like this when we realize that we're onto something important and believe even more strongly that we're headed in the right direction.

Going even further in the "we believe" direction, OceanLinez.biz released a feature article about ActiveCaptain on Wednesday called, "ActiveCaptain Could be the Wave of the Future." Quoting their first paragraph:
Telling you that ActiveCaptain “could” be the wave of the future is probably a little bit like saying the Internet will “probably be a big thing.”  The truth is, ActiveCaptain already is a fantastic resource for cruisers and passagemakers, but it might actually become something huge — a source of real-time, up-to-the-minute information that your navigation system can access while underway.  That’s saying something and the more ActiveCaptain develops, the less far-fetched it sounds.  But more on that later; let’s see why it’s already worth your time to “become” an ActiveCaptain.
The MTOA seminars that we attended were great. We met hundreds of people, ate exceptional food, exchanged sea stories, and made plans for future get togethers with new friends. All of this was exhausting! Today we lounged around, went grocery shopping, caught up on computer work, and arranged play times for Dyna and Dylan with other dogs.

The grocery store in Crisfied is pretty small with few selections. I was, however, able to prevail in getting Breyers ice cream. Karen was seriously considering a type called Turkey Hill and another called PET. I now have veto power over ice cream selection and I draw the line far before ever purchasing something with an animal name or any play-on-words cute names. PET ice cream? That's just asking for trouble!

There are a bunch of DeFever trawlers still here so we're all getting together for a group dinner tonight. It'll be a group of a dozen or so people. Dyna and Dylan were specifically invited and will tag along for the fun. You know, our song was right - it isn't about the boat, the places, or the sunsets. Cruising is about the people you meet.

2 comments:

Sheila and Bill Corbett said...

Hi J & K,

Looks like you had a great week there. Eat any good crab? I'll have to plan to attend next year.

Did you get a feeling for how many people there will be cruising south this fall?

-Bill

MV Red Head said...

Hi Bill - we've had nothing bit crab! Cream of crab soup, crabcakes, someone here gave us a crab dip, Wednesday night was a traditional Old Bay crab pickin' dinner. Crisfield is the crab capital of Maryland.

I'd guess that about 30% of the people at MTOA are cruising now. The others were local and came for the week rendezvous. That's why so many left today - it's 2 days to a lot of the more populated places and many need to get back to work on Monday.

Anyway, of the cruisers, everyone we met is heading south between now and early November. There will be plenty of boats traveling in your and my direction.

You're getting close to leaving. I hope your plans are coming along.