Wreck Diver

Re-classification would be dependent upon cache owner interest in further clarifying the cache type, if so desired. It wouldn't be all that different than the implementation of the Cache Attribute icons after the cache was listed. Some of the previously-listed cache owners decided to also adopt the Cache Attributes and added them to the cache pages, others did not. There wouldn't be a need to re-classify previously approved Mystery caches. The owners could simply leave them as Mystery caches, or if they felt it was more appropriate, they would have the option to edit the cache listing re-classify them as the Puzzle cache type.

The current definition of the Mystery or Puzzle cache icon is as follows: "The “catch-all” of cache types, this form of cache can involve complicated puzzles you will first need to solve to determine the coordinates. The only commonality of this cache type is that the coordinates listed are not of the actual cache location but a general reference point, such as a nearby parking location. Due to the increasing creativity of geocaching this becomes the staging ground for new and unique challenges." The last two years have brought a upwelling of Mystery caches to New England, and based on the variety that is being grouped into the the Mystery cache type, I think it would be proper to suggest that the Mystery cache type be divided into Mystery caches, and Puzzle caches. At the present, I would suggest the following: Mystery caches involve accurate coordinates, with an unexpected find at the listed coordinates. An example of this would be the accurate coordinates and untraditional hide for Brew Bird Cache at Rocky Ridge in Hanover, Massachusetts. Puzzle caches involve offset coordinates and/or complicated puzzles to resolve prior to finding the actual cache coordinates. An example of these offset (and in my case, German Enigma-encoded coordinates) would be Mercury Rising somewhere near Newport, Rhode Island. This distinction is quite different for traveling cachers who may be willing to search for an creative untraditional hide with accurate coordinates, but who are lacking sufficient time to tackle an array of mathematics or decryption to locate the container near their vacation spot. Given the rapid increase of Mystery caches in New England and the current re-structuring of Virtual and Reverse Locationless caches, I think that there may be merit in also introducing a Puzzle cache icon to further differentiate the current Mystery cache types.

How many birds do you get when the bird feeder is empty?

I have a fairly active traditional cache/travel bug hotel and I will frequently stop in and check on the cache while I am on the way home from work. Where the cache is listed as a travel bug hotel, I am content leaving the travel bugs in the cache for someone else to find. I will write down the tag number and log the travel bug out of the cache and then back in with a cache page note so that the owner knows that their travel bug is present and accounted for. My logs will generally read something like "Briefly retrieved the WaldenRun's GPS travel bug from the Scenic (Bug) Highway cache near the Cape Cod Canal in Bourne, Massachusetts." Part of this logic is in actually owning a travel bug and watching and wondering whether it is still in circulation. There have been times the travel bug was logged into an out-of-state cache where it languished for quite some time, then a finder logged the cache without retrieving the travel bug or even mentioning that they saw it in the cache. As the owner, you start wondering whether it is still there, whether it got muggled, where the heck it went. I appreciate the status updates, whether the cacher elects to retrieve the travel bug or they leave it for the next finder.

As a cache owner that decided to list our traditional cache as a travel bug hotel because of its proximity to both bridges onto Cape Cod, I've found that the cache has been well utilized with only a few problems over the two year period. I think a primary consideration is whether or not a cache is a traditional cache/travel bug hotel, or if it is strictly a travel bug hotel. In our case, the cache is a traditional/hotel so regardless of the travel bug status, the well stocked cache offers a trading ability for cachers that find it for the first time. A cache that is strictly listed as a travel bug hotel will generally contain a log book, a writing instrument, and travel bugs. Without a travel bug in residence, the travel bug hotel is simply an empty box in the woods with a notebook in it that is bound to disappoint the next finder. A number of travel bug hotels have popped up in the surrounding area, and this has posed a problem for us because we've actually had these cache owner's show up at our cache as previous finders and remove ALL of the travel bugs without trade and then relocate the travel bugs to their own travel bug hotel. Where I listed the cache as a travel bug hotel, I feel that I have some obligation to maintain a stocked status and when a previous finder decides to stop by and retrieve three or four travel bugs without trade, I feel that the overall result is negative... for us, and for anyone that seeks the advertised travel bug hotel with hopes of picking up a travel bug. The common principal in geocaching and suggestion on all of the Finder's Notes is that if you take something, then leave something. To show up at someone else's cache and clean out all of the travel bugs without trade leaves the cache owner with a deficit because whether it is a traditional/hotel or strictly hotel, the cache container is a lot lighter for the next finder. There's a more distal travel bug hotel near the Route 24/Route 495 whose owner is less interested in keeping the travel bug hotel stocked and it has a reputation of being constantly empty. Awful lot of logs from people who made the road trip to find the cache with hopes of retrieving a travel bug, only to find an ammo can with a notebook in it. I doubt that there will ever be agreement on what's ethical or unethical when it comes to travel bugs, but I personally believe in the take something, leave something axiom.

It seems like the New England cachers wait until the last travel bug has been retrieved from the event cache before they archive the listing. Unfortunately, the event caches around here also seem like travel bug black holes, so two years after some of the events, there are STILL travel bugs logged into the event caches. The one month automatic archival suggestion sounds like a good idea.

When the Capture the Flag TB Competition was taking place in New England, a previous finder suggested our Juliett 484 mystery cache aboard the Soviet ballistic nuclear missle submarine in Providence, Rhode Island as a Bonus Cache. While we were never contacted about the use of the Juliett 484 as a Bonus Cache in the Capture the Flag TB Competition, Dive Princess, the Juliett 484 administrative staff, and I were all quite happy that the cache was selected as Rhode Island's representative cache. I think that any cache owner that received an e-mail from a cacher that is looking to include their cache in an event would be happy to assist.

That sounds just like a previous finder that regularly stops by the Scenic (Bug) Highway and makes a habit of picking up four travel bugs and if I'm lucky, they leave one travel bug in exchange. Some cachers just don't understand the term "deficit" or that a travel bug hotel without travel bugs isn't a geocache, it is geo-litter.

The virtual could effectively be banned because it would require the listing of the Monument coordinates and much of that information has been deliberately removed from the Web because of security concerns.

Considering the location and the coordinates, I would wager that the active ban would include virtuals. The letter asking the NPS for permission to place the virtual cache and their response would make an interesting thread as well.

The Washington Monument is the responsibility of the National Park Service, so Groundspeak and Geocaching.com policies and protocols aside, the National Park Service's active ban on geocaches of any kind should have immediately precluded the cache from being submitted.

I just placed a micro stone in the field using the sissy-n-cr Bison Logs. I had also looked at Firehouse16 & Code 3's Links, Goodies, and Forms and will probably use some of their smaller forms in the future.

ppro, looks like we are in the same boat. Dive Princess and I are heading to Iberostar Dominicana in Punta Cana on July 10 and we'll be there until July 17. Feel free to give the hotel a call and ask for us (Keith & Tracy McDonald) and we can try to find some of the caches together. I have a few travel bugs that want to drop off, so the team approach might help assure the caches are located and the bugs get dropped. My e-mail is wreckdiver@adelphia.net if you want to try contacting me direct.

BIC disposable cigarette lighters. Matchbooks or boxed matches. Ammunition of any kind, either live or already fired. (One wouldn't think that this even needs be said, but leaving brass in caches seems to be popular in New England for some bizarre reason...)

As the owner of the cache aboard the Juliett 484 Soviet Guided Nuclear Missle submarine, I wasn't sure whether or not all of these posts advertising the cache itself violated the commercial guidelines. Since everyone keeps addressing the cache, I will make it known that the non-profit organization that is tasked with maintaining the Juliett 484 made some specific accommodations for geocachers to help alleviate potential conflicts with the commercial caches policy. In addition, a cache page policy that prohibits identifying the cache location or providing photographs that might identify the cache location or the non-profit organization helps eliminate the potential for inadvertant commercial advertisement. This cache took close to a month to set up and it involved constant communication between myself, the non-profit organization's administration, the non-profit organization's support staff, and a small team of geocaching.com volunteer reviewers. The Juliett 484 is the ONLY Soviet guided nuclear missle submarine known to be in the United States, and it is one of only sixteen in the world. Just seeing one of these would have been a once-in-a-lifetime find, but because the many people involved in the development of this cache, geocachers are able to board the sub and often receive an extended tour if they have sufficient time. In addition, where the cache container is in plain sight in the Doctor's Quarters in Compartment 2, every muggle that boards the sub is introduced to geocaching.com and to the intrique of puzzle caches. We've managed to assimilate some new cachers as a result. I think based on the watch list and the finder's reviews, this cache presented an incredible opportunity for geocachers, and I am glad that all of the parties involved worked as diligently as they did for so long in order to arrange this unique opportunity.

And I thought that it was just the Flying Monkeys we had to worry about!

Responsibility for the stupidity of others is the backbone of public safety, and though I would be glad to eliminate the perpetual source of funding for my four paychecks, I don't see that changing any time soon. To return to the topic, I have seen a number of underwater caches listed that opted for continuous contents immersion from the start, or with submerged coordinates to a secondary container on dry land. I think that submerging a dry container with an expectation that the contents would remain dry would be problematic. The cache container would eventually lose integrity at depth and flood, or water would be introduced when a cacher located it at depth. Even if the container was relocated to the surface after the find, the container would likely end up with water onboard either accidentally or through condensation as the container changes thermal layers. This is a huge problem for anyone using digital or analog cameras for underwater photography and I can't count the number of times I've descended past a hundred feet and found that the camera was useless because the air at the surface contained sufficient moisture to fog the housing a hundred feet deeper and thirty degrees cooler. That's not to say I am completely discouraged from making a 5/5 version of Mercury Rising where cachers have to visit the U-boat crew at 130 feet to log the cache.

I'd previously seen that photograph and wondered whether that was cacher-created camouflage, or if it had occured naturally. I spend a tremendous amount of time in the water both personally and professionally (I've had four in-water body recoveries over the last thirty days) and I think I have managed to flood about every imaginable electrical component that can readily be carried by hand. GPS MILSPECs are extremely shallow, generally eighteen inches for thirty minutes max. Submerging the GPSr in a secondary "waterproof" container under a few inches of water blocks the signal reception altogether, so the GPSr is effectively useless once it leaves the surface. Despite my interest in developing an underwater cache, I have continued to postpone the development because of the inevitable probability of a cacher locating the general coordinates above water, and then attempting to descend on the site with the GPS on their person and damage to the GPS occuring as a result.

As a deep wreck diver, I can personally assure you that there is NO such thing as a waterproof container, whether the claim involves a "waterproof" camera housing, a "waterproof" container, or a "waterproof" GPS. If you put it in the water, contingency plan for immersion because it's going to get wet.

That looks like the transcript of the last field sobriety test I administered! On a more serious note, which cache is the code for? I've got caches using the German Enigma, the U.S. Navy SIGABA, Vigenere, and transliterated Russian and I don't immediately recognize the cipher so I'd be interested in seeing the cache that the code originated from.

While there are several SCUBA caches that I know of and tend to watch, they were engineered so that they could be listed as traditional caches or as multi-caches. I think that the virtual cache listing guidelines would come in conflict before the commercial cache guidelines would even come into question, but you can discuss the details with your regional approver and give them a rough idea what you would like to try and accomplish, that way you can work out the finer details before you set up the cache or add it to the listing queue. You can visit geocaching.com and select "HIDE & SEEK A CACHE" and then enter SCUBA (or related term) as the keyword. That general search brought up sixteen SCUBA caches. You may want to take a look at the listed caches for some ideas how to approach the concept. As a side note, you may not want to consider your GPS waterproof, despite the manufacturer's suggestions that the GPS meets MILSPEC standards. Keep the GPS in the surface float or on the boat, as they don't work underwater anyways.

Nothing may completely stop it, but there's no need to encourage through further inaction.

The weirdest cache of my 250 found has been The Blue Hole-Search for the Jersey Devil (GC2092) in Hammonton, New Jersey. My Find was in February 2004, but you may still find the log and images disconcerting.

Another case-in-point for concealing the cache coordinates on the cache page unless the individual has taken the time to create an account and then logged in. How many caches have to be trashed for juvenile entertainment before the geocaching.com administration takes this ongoing threat and chronic expenditure seriously enough to implement this simple preventative precaution?

Setting up a good multi-cache that doesn't become an archival risk two weeks after it's listed takes a lot of planning, research, and experience. It would probably be a good idea to put the multi-cache idea on the back burner for now and go search for a couple of multi-caches in a wide area around your home coordinates. If you've never found a multi-cache before, you haven't gotten a feel for the type of hides or the types of problems that regularly occur with multi-caches. Having the firsthand multi-cache experience will help you avoid some of the pitfalls as you develop the cache, and less problems in the long run once the cache is listed. Once the cache is listed, the logs your first few finders leave are going to be the single largest guide for cachers when they decide whether or not to search for your cache. If cachers start reporting DNFs because of poor coordinates, muggled containers, or treacherous conditions that they weren't warned about in advance, it will turn a lot of cachers off to using their few free hours to search for it. You've noted my Juliett 484 mystery cache and the number of positive logs and the number of cachers watching the cache, something that I am glad to see as my mystery caches each took about a month to set up. So, for what it is worth, I think that if you get a good base of previous finds for the type of cache that you'd like to set up, and spend some time working on each stage individually, you'll be starting off from a good foundation. Good luck!