the hull truth is good.
i go offshore in the pacific northwest and there you really do need to be more prepared.

a good medical box. with a pack to stop bleeding.
handheld floating radio, strobe light, whistle, something big that floats like an ice chest. marine radio with dsc so one press on the red button lights up the coast guard and surrounding boats. have a box on your fish finder that always shows your gps position so you can relay it quickly. the modern radio with dsc does that as well.
radar is a big plus. as well as on your gps you put a breadcrumb trail back to your home spot so if in fog or at night you can follow it right home.
an anchor with enough scope to hit bottom in most places so you dont get washed ashore if you lose all power.
a way to get back on the boat all by yourself if you fall in. and practice it.
a square bucket for bailing. that will bail faster than all your bilge pumps.
a toilet bowl wax ring to stuff in any holes that may sink you from a broken fitting, to hitting something.
enough tools and extra wire to fix things.
a tow rope if your anchor rode isnt strong enough to tow your boat. this way you arent totally relying on the coast guard. a radar reflector ball you can raise up so a bigger boat doesnt crush you in the dark or fog.
portable load air horn.
hand held spot light.
an easy way to get to your fuel filters in case they clog with dirt or water. and possibly having a Y valve so your kicker can run off the gas tank ahead of all the other lines and filters. or have its own separate fuel supply which is my choice. and a way to start it if all electronics are dead. which likely will be your worse situation that happens that isnt life threatening.
carry a set of 2 or 4 gauge jumper cables long enough to reach another boat. you never know when you may need them and can use them to jump your main from another battery.

That's a great list, Ray.

I have a lot of those checked but there are some I hadn't even thought of.

Thanks

one thing is see that i am not happy about is not having one bilge pump mounted higher up so if you do take on water it is less likely to get plugged up from debris. and i couldnt tell the size just one was 1100 but two that size is way under rated for that sized boat.
remember they never pump their rated amount as its rated for a full 12.8 or 13 volts which you wont have unless your engine is running and the outflow hole is at the waterline. most will be lucky to pump 50% of their rated capacity. most put a large one higher up also so as if the water reaches it it means the other pump or pumps cant keep up so it auto goes on. and isnt a factor when you just have small amounts of rainwater or splash to pump out. not important till your 20 plus miles out and have a problem. thats when you will need the bucket.

basically if you lose your plug and have a one inch hole it will let in as much as 30 gallons a minute/1800 gallons an hour and as the boat goes lower in the water the rate increases.
so you really need two 2000 pumps to have much of a chance if you can get to plug the hole. if its your plug then of course you can get on plane and drain the water out that way if you catch it in time before too much water comes in and negates that chance.
now if a larger fitting breaks then no pumps are going to keep up. that is where one or two bailing can come in handy. i believe that broken fittings is the leading cause of sinking in the ocean.

that is why a smooth discharge hose that is at least one inch is a minimum and larger is better.
a good thing is to put a water alarm in the bilge above where you want it to go off so no false alarms. thats a cheap warning system.

Good advice Ray. I'll probably go over everything when (if) I get the boat.

Nothing more from him since he said he was going to put it in the water.

Trading update.

Apparently I don't have the same risk acceptance I did when I was young. I've been sitting on cash for a while and haven't made a trade yet.

The market has been all over the place lately and to me any short term trades seem like tossing darts while blindfolded.

Got my first very polite rejection letter.

Fwiw I'd bet that you will be a dog with short-term market investment. It will be very hard to figure out if you are actually making good decisions or not unless you invest a big amount of time into getting good at it. And you likely need to have the psychological makeup to not be emotionally attached to any of the outcomes.

Based on my virtual 2p2 read of you and what you've just said, my recommendation is to view it as a hobby that is likely slightly -EV or at least more -EV compared to managing a normal portfolio where you just sit on everything.

Yeah, this is all pretty true.

I do have a decent handle on technical trading. I spent years studying this. I also have the business channel on all day and I feel like I'm a lot better at the feel of the markets.

But I'm sorely lacking on the emotional side. I really beat myself up when I make a trade that doesn't go the way I want it to go. It affects my decision making.

My portfolio right now is just now coming back to pre-pandemic levels. My risk aversion put me on a lot of value and dividend stocks which have not done well at all. I'm not in any of the tech high-flyers at all. I don't mean things like appl/msft, etc. I haven't been on board things like zoom that have rocketed up recently. Looks like the rotation back to the things I like and own has begun and I don't see why it won't continue.

Given all that, I will continue to keep a bit of cash available and will trade around positions. But I doubt I'll be very active.

when not on the floor or trading where you get in first, you always take the worst of the price. that kills all the small day traders who make money in a rising market mostly because it is a rising market and their mistakes dont punish them as much as when the market is flatter. its like playing in a poker game with a rake off. you cant beat it unless you are better than almost all the others. with no rake off all you have to do is play better than the average guy.

Everyone has access to TV - that is not any sort of edge or anything, really.

The emotional side may be the most important part of trading from what I understand. This is somewhat similar in poker - if you are too attached to certain outcomes of a hand you just can't play it properly.

I don't want to be too discouraging but I'm pretty sure it's much harder to beat the market than most people think. There are a lot of people spending a lot of time trying to and most don't (and most of the ones who do are on the better side of variance and their performance is not sustainable).

Now, if you really think you enjoy it, that's another thing. However, I kind of get the feeling that you think this is a way to "make some money" on the side or something. I am admittedly not an expert at all but I still feel somewhat strongly that starting assumption is likely to simply be untrue. You're better off just taking up another hobby or anything and waiting until you can go back to the bait shop .

Judging by how much people are willing to pay for a microsecond advantage, it's hard to imagine competing at home. Is there a niche market that trades a little slower that you could find an edge in?

I don't disagree with anything here but I would like to clarify.

I have absolutely no intention of day trading. Or short term trading for that matter. It's a fool's game.

What I do want to do is some medium term trading. Buying when I think the market has overly punished something and selling when I think a stock is getting overheated. Maybe a bit of momentum trading.

I will still have a core portfolio of what I consider solid long-term investments.

And, like I said, I have cash now to trade and haven't seen any opportunities I want to take advantage of.

I'd guess you're also not trying to beat the market--i.e., have a greater return than the market as a whole.

Rather, looking to outpace inflation with finding some value here & there.

That sounds about right.

In other news - here comes a hurricane!

if there isnt one coming you are not in florida during the warm water season.
there is another one brewing out there as well. a lot of stuff for the end of the hurricane season.

All is well.

The wind wasn't too horrible. I never felt like anything bad was going to happen.

But, the storm surge was the worst since I've been here. The water has never come over the seawall before last night.

You can see where the water level was (seaweed line). If you look towards the back of the pic you can see that there is a sidewalk that is now covered with gravel.

We still had probably 2-3 feet before it would get into the house.

Things are a lot worse here when the storm runs up the west coast.

Boat is moving along, albeit slowly. Tackle box arrived (but not installed). Windshield installed.

He still hasn't put it in the water.

My wife and I had a rare argument about this. She has been all over him and can't understand why I'm not. At this point in time I don't believe anything positive happens if we get on him. It isn't going to make him go any faster. Everything he is telling me indicates he is going above and beyond to make sure we have a really nice boat. It is just taking a long time.

The Letters of Testamentary have arrived at the lawyer's office and he is mailing them today. Once I get these, things should start moving.

I've spent an incredible amount of money on all of this, at the expense of some personal things I need to pay for.

I am tracking a lot of stocks but one in particular is standing out for me.

TSLA has been trading in an extremely tight range for a while now. IMO it setting up to break one way or another, and break hard. My guess is to the downside but my play would be to wait for the break and go with it whichever direction it heads.

Unfortunately (or fortunately maybe) I cannot short stocks in my current accounts.

Given all of that, I doubt I do anything with it at all. Just an observation.

Make sure to keep receipts for any expenses you have. If it's anything like my experiences, the personal representative of the estate (if intestate; executor if these is a will) is able to have their expenses refunded from the estate, in addition to getting a small percentage of the estate for their work.

Yeah, we have been doing this.

I went to my bank and tried to open an estate account. They told me that it had to be opened in Texas where mom died. I think this is bs but didn't care to push it. My sister will open the account there.

Yesterday this guy showed up. We didn't pay much attention to it because birds land there all the time and we just figured it was an osprey. But some people walked by and pointed out it was a bald eagle. Pretty cool. First one I've seen here.

He (or she) sat there a while then spotted an osprey with a fish and harassed it until it dropped it. Eagle scooped it up.

Some covid stuff.

Had dinner (outside) with my wife's son and his girlfriend who is an ER nurse.

She had been working in the covid unit but isn't now. She said one of the covid nurses there (42 and not overweight) died of it.

She said that this spike is a mutation that is a lot more contagious, but less deadly. She also said their treatment right now is just zinc and vitamin c. None of the drugs that you hear about.