When it comes to owning a gun, safety should be your number one priority. From shooting to storage to maintenance, guns are a big responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Upon first purchasing a gun, most legitimate gun shops will give you lessons on the proper use and maintenance of your particular gun. They will teach you the proper way to shoot it, store it and clean it. Proper gun handling skills are vital for keeping yourself and those around you safe.
Although it may not seem like a big deal, keeping your gun properly cleaned is an important part of keeping it safe. A gun that is not properly cleaned and maintained can malfunction and cause injury to the user. Every gun should be cleared of all gunpowder residue at the end of each shooting session. It should also be carefully monitored for rust buildup that could damage the gun.
Storage is an important part of gun safety. A gun that is left out and loaded is not a safe gun. Whenever the gun is not in use it should be fully unloaded and stored away out of sight and reach of curious hands. The best place to store your guns is in specially designed handgun safes .
When you practice gun safety and are aware of the possible dangers associated with guns you will be better equipped to handle each situation and will be able to get the full recreational enjoyment out of your gun.
One of the nice things to do while visiting Marco Island in Florida is walking the beaches for beautiful shells. There are some tour companies that can take visitors to areas across the Thousand Islands area looking for ocean life and shells like the Sunshine Tours . They will have some tips for getting the most out of shelling along the shoreline. If you decided to just walk right from the hotel marco island and onto the beach looking for shells on your own, than here are a few tips to keep in mind. This activity can put people in some interesting positions if they don’t pay attention. Also, if they don’t store their shells right they may break before you get them home to your coffee table. So while roaming for shells keep some of these tips in mind. Be mindful of the tides. Check with your hotel if you need to find out whether it is a low or high tide. Some of the most shells are best seen on a low tide so there may be a better day or time to do your scouting. It is also important to know about tides because of were one might wonder. If one ends up on a sand bar that had a low tide in the early part of the day, it is possible to be stranded on a sand bar that had a high tide slowly coming in with out notice. That would be quite a situation. The current could be strong around the sand bar and make it hard to get back to shore. Make sure to carry lots of sunscreen with you because you may be out for a while and will need to reapply the lotion a few times to protect your skin. If you wear shoes it will also help protect the tops of your feet from the sun as well as keep them from getting to sore from the sand. If your not used to walking barefoot in the sand they can tend to get a little tender. Bring along a few kinds of bags for your collection. A mesh bag is great for the heavier shells because it helps the sand and water to drain. Smaller plastic bags for the small and thin shells will keep them from getting broken or lost. Some sort of flat cardboard or plate should be used to bring starfish home because the legs break off really easily. When you do finally get them home clean them up with some alcohol and let them dry in the sun to kill off any bacteria. So enjoy your day of shelling along the Marco Island shoreline.
Tampa Bay is the largest estuary in the state of Florida; an estuary is a bay with one or more rivers and streams flowing into it and a open region connected to the sea where the river and ocean environments mingle. This produces a very diverse and productive ecosystem. The Florida ecosystem is home to several animals found nowhere else in the world and most are now endangered. Thankfully, several volunteer organizations are stepping in to prevent our losing these creatures.
Green Key, once an essential nesting ground for the local water birds has lost much of it’s shoreline to erosion over the years. This past month teens from a Tampa school and volunteers with the Audubon of Florida Gulf Coast Ecosystem staff and Tampa Bay Watch worked on restoring this habitat making man made reefs out of sacks of oyster shells. Tampa Bay Watch uses thousands of volunteers to assist in a variety of habitat restoration and protection projects throughout the year. Individuals of all ages from all communities are welcome to assist, scout troops, schools and others participate in salt marsh plantings, oyster bar creation, coastal cleanups, and wildlife protection each year, demonstrating environmental maintenance in its purest form. When done volunteers will have created several hundred feet of artificial reef they hope will stop the erosion and create an important foraging ground for various tropical wading birds like reddish egrets roseate spoonbills and American oystercatchers.
In the 1960′s construction at Port Redwing drove the birds nesting in Green Key north to Rich T. Paul Alafia Bank Bird Sanctuary Islands, approximately three miles north.The Richard T. Paul Sanctuary includes two man made islands Bird Island to the east and Sunken Island to the west made from the spoil when they dredged the river to deepen it as a shipping channel; the birds quickly took these over as nesting sites. In the future they don’t expect the birds to permanently return to Green key but they hope to boost the rare bird population by providing more available and safe feeding grounds