Monthly Archives: March 2023

Trip

Sailing Skipper Secrets – How to Use a Marine Anchor Trip Line For Worry Free Anchoring

How many times have you had a tough time pulling your marine anchor aboard? Perhaps it snagged on a rock, coral head, cable, or worse–another anchor? As a sailing skipper, you can avoid these headaches with a simple, easy-to-use trip line.

One end of the trip line attaches to the anchor and the other end has a float–like a plastic jug or Styrofoam buoy. When you’re ready to pull in your anchor, you grab the float, pull on it, and the anchor lifts off the bottom. Here are four times you will want to use a trip line:

1. Crowded harbors where you might snag another boat’s anchor.
2. Poor bottoms like rock or coral where your anchor might get stuck.
3. To mark your anchor so that boats don’t run over your anchor rode.
4. If you might need to retrieve your anchor fast in an emergency.

Follow these five easy steps to make, deploy, and retrieve a trip-line:

1. Determine the Line Length

Write down the depth of the anchorage shown on your navigational chart. Next, determine the height of the highest of the high tides during the time you will be anchored. Find this information from your marine radio or the Internet. Add a safety factor of three feet to these first two factors.

Example:
Your navigational chart states that your anchoring spot has a depth of 18 feet. You will anchor for two days. The tide tables indicate the consecutive high tides over those two days to be 5 feet, 7 feet, 6.5 feet and 9 feet above low tide. How long should you make your trip line?

18 feet (low tide) + 9 feet (highest tide) + 3 feet (safety factor) = 30 feet long.

2. Prepare the Trip Line

Use strong, small diameter polypropylene line. It floats, comes in bright colors for good visibility, and stands up well to abrasion.

Tie one end of the line to the crown, or lower part of the anchor. On lightweight anchors like the Danforth or Fortress, locate the crown where the shank (the long arm) and flukes meet. Stockless anchors–like the Bruce, Delta, or Rocna–often have a small hole drilled where the shank bends down toward the flukes. On a CQR anchor, attach the line to the rear horizontal bar.

Tie the other end of the trip line to your float. Form a large eye-splice in this end to make recovery with a boat hook easier.

3. Coil the Line

Start nearest the anchor and coil clockwise toward the float. Pass the coil under and back over the bow pulpit or rail so that it goes over without snagging. Break the coil in half with your dominant hand holding that half closest to the float.

4. Deploy the Trip Line

Wait for the boat to stop over the anchorage spot. Heave the line float over the bow and allow the coiled line to stream all the way. Next, lower the anchor in the normal way. Use this sequence to keep the trip line and marine anchor from wrapping around one another.

5. Retrieve the Line

Pull on the anchor rode, or use the boat diesel to nudge up near the trip line. Use a boat hook to retrieve the float. First, try to retrieve your anchor without using the trip-line. If it’s fouled pull on the line to try and capsize the anchor. Take the line to a halyard or sheet winch for more pulling power.

After you have your trip line aboard, remove it from the anchor crown. Rinse the line in fresh water, dry it well, and coil it back down into your anchor locker.

Every sailing skipper needs to know the secrets of how to make, deploy, and retrieve a marine anchor trip line. Follow these five fast, easy steps to make your life on the hook easier, safer, and less stressful!

Travel

The Risks and Rewards of a Travel Nurse

There is a shortage of nurses internationally, especially in America. Due to higher standards of living in developed countries, many people live longer and expect treatment for diseases. This expectation of aid makes the demand for nurses much higher than it has been in the past.

Moving

A travel nurse is hired to work at a health care facility for a temporary amount of time, like most nursing professions. However, an intrinsic aspect of this profession is that it involves one taking temporary jobs across the United States.

A travel nurse must uproot themselves, pack up all of their belongings, fill out copious amounts of paperwork, and then leave behind wherever they have come to call home.

Paperwork

An important part of being a travel nurse is the amount of paperwork involved. One must have the appropriate licenses, medical care specializations, and quality of health. Usually, once the paperwork for those issues has been resolved, they will not have to be filled out for a quite some time. Often, nursing agencies will accept others’ paperwork for a certified nurse who travels.

Why would anyone choose this lifestyle?

They do it for the adventure, money, and perks. Some people would like to travel before they die. They want to visit other states and observe the culture there. These people have an urge to experience new climates and environments.

Adventure

For them, there is a need to satisfy their desire for adventure. Becoming a travel nurse satiates this hunger. They travel from location to location and can see the sights when they are not saving lives.

Money

Travel nurses also tend to receive higher pay levels than regular nurse practitioners. Oftentimes, nursing agencies will help out travel nurses with supplying rented vehicles, covering travel fees, renting housing, and providing health insurance. Some of these deals can be really sweet with a lot of nice benefits.

Perks

However, they should always try to quantify the perks in their cash value. All of the perks are paid for but are usually deducted from the money that the nurse would have been given. The free items are not free, so much as taken from the nurse preemptive.

On the flip side, those perks could come from a great deal of money that the nursing agency has access to. Thus, the prospective travel nurse must carefully observe the offers being given, especially when they will influence months of his or her life.

A perk the travel nurse should be wary of is tax-free housing. This is basically a home base that the nurse returns to between jobs. There are some very difficult ways of making it work so if the nurse practitioner is offered tax-free housing, they should study the subject and obtain tax consultation.

Being a travel nurse is undoubtedly a challenging occupation. One has to be a specialist who can be called away to various locations across the United States in order to help others. This is a difficult lifestyle but also a rewarding one. A nurse’s skills of healing are held in such high regard all that hospitals across the country want them.

Tips

List Building – 10 Insider Tips to Multiply Your Opt-In Rate

The other day, a subscriber emailed me. He shared that he had a website that he thought was greatly designed, gave enough information, and was relevant; but he was not getting much subscribers.

He was depressed because he knows any internet business is built on lists. A long chat later, I promised to write him an email with some tips on how to get more people to opt in, so that his list can keep growing. Some of them are shared here:

List Building Tip #1: Ask Yourself, “Why Would Someone Want to Opt In?”

Virtually every site you visit today has an opt-in form. But what is it that will make someone want to opt in? Consider that from a potential opt-in’s point of view, if they give you their name and email address, it’s another email to fill up their inbox.

With the current global information overload, who wants one more email in their inbox that they could do without?

To differentiate yourself, you need to make the reader a compelling promise. You can start with a free report or e-book containing useful information. Then in 2 or 3 lines, explain to them what they will receive after they opt in. It should be value adding and directly helpful to the reader.

List Building Tip #2: Be Creative with the Opt-In Itself.

Other than being creative in just copy, you need to be creative in the way you ask people to sign into your list. Let’s take an example. You’re an affiliate marketer for a book that finally reveals who killed John F Kennedy.

At the opt-in page, say something interesting. Something like: Get closer everyday to knowing who killed JFK – 21 steps to the world’s biggest secret. Sign up now” will get you more opt-ins than just “sign up here for more on the JFK murder.”

List Building Tip #3: Put an Opt-In Form on All Your Webpages.

For each webpage related to the product, put an opt-in form. It makes it easier for the reader. Make it such that if the thought even crosses their mind for a second, they are able to immediately see the opt-in form enticing them to sign up.

List Building Tip #4: Use Yahoo! Answers and Forums.

There are numerous forums on the internet where people have problems that they need answers for and cannot seem to get them from anywhere.

This is a perfect chance for you to entice them with your free product – get in there, track conversations and get talking. You’ll need to narrow down to something that has to do with the particular product you are trying to build a list for.

Create a list of search words, and when you land on the page, enter those search words one by one. They will lead you to threads where people are having the particular discussions you’re looking for.

Get talking and subtly mention your free product to those who might need it. People are less hostile to free products as opposed to paid ones.

List Building Tip #5: Post in Forum Marketplaces.

There are forums on the internet that are set up to assist internet marketers. They are a meeting point, a marketplace so to speak. People can exchange information, sell, buy and promote.

A good example would the “WSO (Warrior Special Offers)” and “Warrior Products & Services” Section at warriorforum.com. Another would be the “Buy, Sell or Trade” Section at digitalpoint.com.

When you post your offers, make sure to play by the rules – one violation could get your account suspended permanently on that forum. Participate in conversations as well; you will learn plenty since they are a place where like-minded people meet.

These forums are a great way to advertise your products and get people to opt in. And if your product is really good, you might even be able to get referrals.

List Building Tip #6: Run a Contest.

This is not one that you’ll see often. Just as in the real world, when people want their products to get noticed, a contest can lead to great numbers in opt-ins.

Make it fun and simple, and then make sure that the prize on offer is something useful and valuable. It may cost you a bit, but it will be worth the list numbers that you are likely to generate.

List Building Tip #7: Offer Discounts.

This is a great way to build a buyers list, which obviously is a much more responsive list than regular subscribers.

Create a squeeze page and indicate that by joining your list, they can get discounts on a variety of products that are not available to the public.

If you’re promoting affiliate products, you will need to coordinate with your merchant about setting up occasional promos. Even if you’re selling at a lower price, you might end up with more profits since the quantity of sales you generate could offset the discounted amount.

List Building Tip #8: Use Industry Magazines and Websites.

They are a form of media and are always looking for content to pass on to their members. The way to do this is to make it a story – make sure that whatever you give them to publish contains 3 key things: it shows a problem, the hurdles to overcoming the problem, and how it was eventually overcome.

At the very end, when you are talking about how the problem was overcome, subtly mention your product’s part in solving it. And that they could get your product for free (in exchange for their emails).

Industry magazines tend to be a trusted source – a sort of a watchdog. It’s likely that it will lead to people investigating your product through your website.

List Building Tip #9: Track Your Opt-Ins.

If you want to know where to focus your efforts, it’s important to know where most opt-ins are coming from. If you’re using various methods, add a little tab that allows an opt-in to say where they heard about your product. The numbers will tell you where to focus your efforts.

From where you get your most opt-ins, spend time to understand better how it works, and then invest energy and/or money there. You might just double or triple the number of opt-ins.

List Building Tip #10: Point Your Readers to the Right Place.

Most people build links and back links that point to their sales page. Don’t! Point your readers to your opt-in page. Your sales page is all good – but long and full of information about your product.

A reader may get there and their minds may wander. Catch them at the first available opportunity – send them directly to the opt-in page. We are already assuming that your opt-in page has the “bribes” and all the advantages that they would get from opting in. Once they are done opting in, you can then re-direct them to your sales page so that they can learn more.

How you craft the re-direction will be important too. Don’t be bland. Use a clever line like “Now that you have opted in to learn the secrets of creating a killer list, go back to (your website link) to learn even more about the value of a great list to your internet business”. That’s more likely to get them back on your sales page than “Click here to go back to the Home Page”.