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Bill Stamps: “Nice”
“Yes, it certainly is. This is one of the unique things about the Meridian. It certainly gives you 360 degree viewing… “
And if you’ve got about 300-thousand dollars, you buy that boat he’s talking about. Or for about 6 to 12 thousand dollars, you can get this.
“The world’s most advance watercraft system…”
That’s an ad for jet skis. Young people love them. But maybe you’re thinking who can afford these things with the economy the way it is. Well, apparently a lot of Houston people can. Like the Matakas family.
“We’re just basically looking. We just moved here from California and we had boats in California, so we’re trying to decide if we want to get a boat here.
Mike Matakas says the economic downturn hasn’t really affected him. The thing is lots of people say the economy isn’t affecting them. Boat dealer Bob Bean says they’re actually selling more boats at this week’s show than they thought they would.
“Right now it’s becoming more of a problem we’re starting to run short on boats. Because we’d anticipated a little bit softer sales than what reality has brought to us.”
If you’re into fishing, water or jet skiing, or just cruising out on the water. Reliant Arena is definitely the place to be this week.
Hurricane Ike damaged so many boats the salesmen thought they’d see mostly storm victims buying new boats, but not so says Bean.
“We’ve been getting a lot of new boaters. We really had thought it’d be a lot of replacement boats, but we’ve really had a lot of people buying their first boat, or additional boats.”
I found Carlos Rios holding his baby boy as he looked at a 21 foot boat.
“Want a boat.”
Carlos is a physician and you don’t hear about many doctors getting laid off.
“I guess its kind of scary, but if you have a good job and you do good work you’ll keep your job and you’ll work without fear.”
So the big question is…how will his son like being out on the water?
“You gonna go for a ride?”
Bill Stamps KUHF Houston Public Radio news.