Essential Gear to Bring on a Boating Trip

Essential gear to bring on a boating trip is like beauty – it depends on the eye of the beholder. You may not want to step off the dock without a double pack of light beer, while your wife would really like to take the kitchen sink. But probably there is a middle ground where we all can agree that some things are really necessary.

First of all, to be safe, every passenger should have true boating shoes. This term is not equivalent to sneakers, no matter how many cute little nautical flags are used for decoration. Boating shoes, in the modern, commercial sense, have grip pads or other carefully designed features on the soles to make them cling to wet, smooth surfaces. All boat decks are smooth, for maintenance reasons as well as for traditional ideas of beauty. All boat decks are very likely to get and/or stay wet.

Secondly, giving the nod to conventional medical wisdom, you should take sun screen. Hats may blow off, assuredly will interfere with letting the wind blow through your hair, and cannot help protect you from the glare off the surface of the water and the boat itself. You will probably be out for hours, so choose one with a high SPF factor. For those skeptical of the true protection of sun screens, take a spray bottle of dilute vitamin C, take extra CoQ10 for a few days before and a few after your excursion, and have some natural coconut oil along.

Clothes are up to you, depending of course on the season, but also on what you are doing. Rafting down a canyon river does not call for shorts and tank tops, because the water feels like ice all year. Wet suits come in all sizes for those active souls, but for the rear cabin of a yacht, shorts will be just fine.

However, foul weather gear should be somewhere in your immediate vicinity, so provide it if you ate the boat owner or check on it beforehand if you are a guest. Open water comes with wind, and being out longer than you expect will make day wear inadequate after sundown. Squalls on the Bay and thunderstorms inland can drench you in a minute. This rainproof outer clothing comes in traditional bright yellow slick to fashionable color coordinates, and can be merely a shell or fully lined for cold weather protection.

For safety, you will want to have on hand a floating flashlight, a way to contact the shore or the folks that stayed on land, a first aid kit with band-aids (great for blisters, if for nothing more serious), lots of water for keeping hydrated, food because raw fish gets old fast, and polarized sunglasses. Sunlight is intensified on the water, so give your eyes the protection they need. Lip balm may also be very welcome after a while.

Of course, there are many other great ideas: gloves to keep the canoe paddle from wearing away the skin on your hands, a personal flotation device (no longer needs to be blaze orange and bulky, or always under your chin), a strap to keep your sunglasses or goggles firmly in place, a folding ladder to let you swim off the boat and get back in, and fishing gear to let you catch dinner. Towel, good books, radios for music and news, good friends – all of these can make things afloat easier and more pleasant.

Essential gear to bring on a boating trip is what personal taste and common sense tell you. You can also check out boating experts, from friends to the US Coast Guard, for advice.

How to Protect Your Personal Safety While Traveling in Europe

Tourists from all countries flock to Europe for sightseeing and vacations. Before leaving on a trip to Europe, however, put some thought into your personal safety while oversees. Most of Europe is relatively safe for a travel destination compared to other places in the world, so many travelers do not think to take precautions. As a traveler, it is important to remember that you can’t be too careful. Do not worry too much, but do take the time to protect yourself when you travel to Europe as a tourist.

One important safety step that only a small percentage of travelers to Europe take advantage of is to register with your country’s embassy in each European destination. Travel safety does not only involve protecting our possessions or ourselves from crime but also consists of having a plan in the case of natural disasters or other unforeseen circumstances or if your trip does not go as planned. Protecting yourself involves having backup places to stay and people you can reach back home. If you register with the embassy, your family will have a way to contact you in the event of an emergency.

Before you leave for your trip, it is also important to check terror threats in the areas of Europe to which you are traveling. Europe has historically been safe for travelers, but lately there have been some terror threats regarding subway systems and other forms of transportation, so be sure to check into this before departing to each new destination.

Wherever you plan to travel in Europe, make sure you know who to go to in the event of an emergency or problem. Whenever you travel to a new country, there are a few things you need to know to be safe. Find out the emergency phone number for each area you will visit, make sure to know where the nearest police station is or somewhere you can go if you need help, and make sure you know where the nearest hospital is and how you will get there if needed.

If you travel to Europe alone, and even if you go in a pair or as a group, there are some steps you can take to make yourself safer. Establish a set contact person, or preferably more than one person, back home. Before you leave, give copies of your itinerary to everyone who is important. Make sure they know how to reach you if necessary, and make sure you have a plan to reach them. Think about the logistics of using your phone and email in Europe. If you are staying in hostels, you may have trouble accessing the Internet. Phone chargers must have adapters to convert to European outlets. Think about these things beforehand so that you always have a line of communication with home should something go wrong.

It never hurts to have a backup plan to deal with potential issues. A little planning before your trip can save a lot of trouble later. Much information is available regarding how to protect personal possessions, and money while traveling, but it is part of your personal safety as well to make sure you do not leave yourself without necessities in the event of a problem. It may be a smart idea to leave whichever credit cards or credit card information you do not take with you with someone you trust back at home. Should something happen to your money while in Europe, this person can reserve hotel rooms and other necessities for you.

Day Trading Tips: Helping Intraday Traders Make Decisions

With the sudden interest of more people to work at home, there is also a surge in interest on how to become a day trader. Day trading, which was previously done exclusively by banks and large brokerage firms, is a type of financial instrument trading where intraday traders buy and sell financial instruments in one single trading day. It is highly profitable but involves a lot of risks. Because of the popularity of the internet, anybody can now do intraday trading.

There are a lot of tips on how to become a day trader. One of the very first tips for new players is to educate one’s self on how day trading is done. The internet can be a very rich source of information regarding day trading. There are a lot of websites offering strategies and tips to help new and even experienced day traders make decisions. It can be helpful if the new day trader can find somebody experienced to mentor him/her because day trading is very risky. The mentor can suggest which of these numerous strategies and tips are more commonly used and more reliable. A day trader can establish one’s own strategies and styles as he/she learns the ropes of intraday trading.

A new day trader must also look for an online broker to utilize for his/her day trading transactions. There a lot of online brokers available online. There are also review sites available regarding online brokers to find out which of these brokers offer the best services and most acceptable commission rate. The mentor can also make suggestions in choosing an online broker. Once the new player has chosen his/her online broker, he/she must open an account with the online broker.

A charting account program is needed to aid in identifying trading opportunities. The charting software can be installed and a chart must be setup for every financial instrument that one plans to trade. The chart can also be used to back test one’s chosen trading methodology.

The online broker can also give the new player a practice account in order to test his/her chosen trading methodology. A practice account doesn’t use real money. It uses play money instead. The chart application is used to monitor the financial instruments market in session. The new player can now practice day trading using the play money. Once he/she is comfortable with the practice account results, the new player can now use his/her real account in actual day trading.

To make a great improvement in day trading, one must analyze his/her successes and failures not only in the real account but in the practice account as well. The player must realize why his/her strategies worked or why the strategies failed. It is through realization that one learns impressively. The player can also develop his/her own strategies by analyzing his/her mistakes and successes.

With online trading, quick returns are possible but it is very risky. Any decision made can be very profitable or very unprofitable. Money must be managed competently and one must be disciplined in order to succeed in day trading. There are a lot of tips available on how to become a day trader but these tips and strategies are worthless if the individual do not put to heart all his/her learning.