The Puzzler

I must be feeling ornery today. Too much work I don't want to get going on I suppose. At any rate, I think we need to differentiate between logging a cache find on geocaching.com vs. logging the find in the physical log book or ones personal records. If there are special rules listing what can and cannot be logged on geocaching.com, then of course those rules should be respected as far as the on-line log goes. But, caches are placed primarily on public property, and to suggest that someone doesn't have the right to or shouldn't hunt for a cache unless they follow the cache owners "rules" is obserd. Respect the community and it's wishes in public such that you don't spoil the fun for others. But within the bounds of not spoiling it for others, do what you darn well please in the privacy of your own group hunt (consenting participants only please).

Okay, I'll try and stir up a bit of trouble here. Although most all of us like to support ethical caching and try to honor the effort and thus propriety of the cache owners, most geocaches are public domain. Not many cache "owners" could support any claim of "ownership" in a court of law even it they have full responsibility for it. On top of that, many cache hunters would have no clue what the owner's log preference might be. AND, geocaching is a very personal experience for many of us. We respect the cache owner, but I'll be damned if they have any business telling me whether or not I have the right to consider myself a "finder" of the cache or not. With a few exceptions (such as organized events or special caches where the "finder" gets unusual recognition, and should thus probably be hunting it alone or competitively to begin with), I believe the dicision to claim a find (or not) is entirely personal. Hauty cache owners be damned.

This raises a good point. The physical logs and the on-line logs are really very different and serve very different purposes. The on-line logs are probably read most carefully by people that have not yet found the cache or the owner/watchers of the cache. The physical logs are read on-the-spot only by people that have already found the cache. If I really like the cache, I like to leave information in the on-line log that further encourages people to hunt the cache. If the cache is in either really good or really bad shape, I like to leave a note on-line regarding the condition of the cache. If the cache locations sucks, I tend to leave on-line logs that don't mention anything about the location. And, since this sport is much bigger than geocaching.com alone, I think it is very reasonable for people to geolurk. Many of us like to have private fun and not advertise our accomplishments on the internet. I'm glad the world if full of geolurkers, and it also makes visiting the physical cache logs fun since they have different and more information. Physical logs are also especially fun because you can express your thoughts freely without worrying about spoiling the hunt for the reader. Happy GeoLurking!

Two thoughts on things that might reduce some of the frustration I have felt while navigating geocaching.com over the last little while. 1) A button on the GeoCaching forums site that would take me directly back to GeoCaching.com (maybe my personal page on geocaching.com) would be very handy. 2) I would like to have GeoCaching.com send me directly to my personal page as soon as I log in, instead of having it reload the main page and then have to click on a button to get to my personal page. 3) Could we have an option in our personal settings that allows us to define our "starting page" after we log in? Just some thoughts. Thanks.

I just deleted MobiPocket from my Palm yesterday . It handles the pocket query data, but does so in what I would consider an aukward and slow manner . The reason I deleted MobiPocket was that I just finished purchasing Cachemate, which by comparison is exceptionally fast, easy and almost as inexpensive. My two cents . . . Cachemate costs money, but get real, it's only $7 USD and what's a small little bit of money in support of the author of a really clean little program? Pay 'em a little and it helps justify to their families why they are spending their time keeping the applications updated. I'm as cheap as they come, and given the time and frustration savings that Cachemate provides over MobiPocket, it's a no-brainer, especially in combination with GSAK.

Clothing optional? Here at the University of British Columbia, several if not most of the near by caches are clothing optional because the University is on a peninsula surounded by a beach that is all clothing optional. For more information on the beach, check out WreckBeach.org. Caches span the beach from the south end with "Happy Cache #1", to the center with "Wreck Beach", to the North end with "Marine Drive". There are also several other caches in the park areas around the beach that are not right on it. A worthy day's caching if you are so inclined.

With the recent gift of a new Garmin Geko 301 GPS and data cable , I am about to invest a fair bit of time into trying to streamline my handling of GeoCaching data. Cost is an issue. What tools are others of you out there using to hunt geocaches efficiently? In the past, I have printed out Cache pages and maps, organized them in a filing system, and either used a map and compass, or entered data into a GPS by hand for hunting purposes. The system works great, but uses up a lot of paper, requires a printer, and leads to a fair bit of time entering data into my GPSr by hand. But, I have a Palm computer that I can download Geocaching data to and a GPS I can download way points to. I also have a laptop that I can connect my GPS to. What software/hardware combinations do you use with notebooks and/or palm computers that allow you to most effiently download and organize your cache hunting? What do you like and not like about the different combinations of tools that you do use and/or have used in the past? I don't want this thread to be so much a discussion of software and hardware, but rather an evaluation of different combinations of tools that work well for people specifically for geocaching. Thanks for your thoughts.

Living in Vancouver BC I end up doing a lot of my GeoCaching in and near the city and many of the cache sites have fairly heavy pedestrian trafic around them along with almost always, at least some garbage. As I find myself being scrutinised by curious GeoMuggles while I "dig" around for a cache , having and filling a bag of garbage turns me from a wierdo into a responsible urban hero . What a great disguise! Thanks to CITO I can now go GeoCaching with relative impunity, even in densely populated areas. AND, I am making the world more beautiful for the next GeoCacher at the same time.

You haven't been reading many of the other forums at this web site, eh?

And for some perspective . . . I generally carry a folded up print-out of the cache page to tell me where to look and what to look for . Sometimes I even cary my GPS , but not if I've mapped out the cache to a fairly narrow and obvious location that allows finding it by reading the cache discription and counting a few paces from an obvious land mark like a road or trail intesection. I might cary extra socks if I were wearing any, but they don't work well with thongs. If it is hot out, I cary a plastic whiskey bottle in my back pocket . Pint whiskey bottles are great because they are flat, just the right size, and fit nicely into pockets. No, I cary water in them. And yes, of course, I cary trade items and a pen.

Two ways: 1) A compass can have small (or large) amounts of metal placed around it to stratigically compensate for environmental conditions (how do you think they get compasses to work on steel ships. If you've ever looked at a ship's compass, it will almost surely have had two metal balls on either side of it that were put there and adjusted to compensate for the ships effect on the compass. 2) My GPS requires me to "calibrate" the compass by turning in a circle twice, probably so that it can compensate for the difference between a permanant magnetic pull from the GPS electronics and batteries and the variable pull from the earths magnetic field lines as I turn.

I do most of my caching on my own . I provides an excuse to get outside and hike in new places. My 6 yr old likes it very much for about 2 or three caches per trip. My wife would rather have her teeth extracted and my 10 yr old thinks it's fun for one or two caches at the most, but only if there is nothing else to do .

Am I just dumb, or is there a secret to figuring out how to vote and how to verify that your avatar is entered? Thanks.

So, we have received 2 pages of replies with maybe three useful or helpful ideas. Can't we do a little better than that? The odds are that the looters are teenage boys (yes, like it or not) entertaining themselves . I don't think you would really want to attack a bunch of youngish delinquents with more than words (which would likely be enough) . Afterall, they are probably not thug types or they would be doing other deliquent acts for entertainment instead. It sounds like harder hides have worked in the past. Certainly the email idea, i.e., a two step "multi-cache" would be a deterent. I like the motion sensor and close-to-home idea, but that might not work every well in some areas . Has (have) the plunderer(s) visited the same cache site on more than one occation. If not, one could hide a cheep cache and then upgrade it after it was plundered. I sure wouldn't hide a cache of DVDs until the cach looting subsided. Surely the delinquents will eventually get borred with cache looting, grow up, and move on to more lucrative activities. Just some thoughts from a once-upon-a-time teenage boy.

As for what compass to purchase, if you already have and use a GPS, any decent liquid filled compass with numbers around the edge that can be rotated (a rotating bezzle) will do fine (~$10). I cannot imagine the need of a sighting compass to follow GeoCaching bearings. I found my first 20+ GeoCaches with nothing but a map and compass (and yes, a sighting compass does come in handy for highly accurate, long distance, location finding). I received a GPS as a gift recently, and have nabbed the two or three GeoCaches in my area that I was not able to find with map & compass alone. I cannot imagine GeoCaching without a compass, BUT, my friend The Geometer" would probably dissagree. The Geometer would say, if you can figure out which direction is north and you know your current coordinates and those of your destination why use a compass? Every 0.001 minutes of latitude (the last digit of most GPS location listings) is amost exactly 6 feet. At 49 degrees north (where I live), every degree of longitude is about 4 feet (the COS of 49 * 6). Simple addition and subtraction should do the rest. I probably shouldn't admit it, but, last night I actually went GeoCaching with only my Garmin Geko 301 GPS, and the built it compas worked very well. My poor Silva Ranger is now doomed to my junk drawr except for serious back-country trips where battery life and reliability become issues.

I just drew this avatar, inspired by this message string. What do you think?

One of the most effective and most economical "Ghillie" suites I've seen on a cache was just a big old dark green garbage bag wrapped around a container. The cache was only half hidden, but blended into the ferns surprizing well. Sorry, no picture.

Two questions: 1) Can we or will we able to edit our travelbug logs since I have left a number of typographical errors behind due to my desire not to completely delete and then rewrite the log I made the error in? 2) Is there a chance that you will add Canadian benchmarks to your database. I posted this question last week and did not receive any feedback? Canadian benchmark information is available from http://www.geod.rncan.gc.ca/index_e/index_e.html

What an interesting string. I'm really rather curious why this seems to be an issue. Have you never seen a nude person other than yourselves before? Walking with my wife and two kids (5 & 9 yrs) back to my car after visiting a local cache (GCG5FC) the other evening, we walked past a man sitting in a classic lotus style possition, in the only sunny spot left on the beach, facing up the beach in the direction we were walking, and wearing nothing except a hat. As we walked by he picked up his coat (nothing else) and put it on. My wife said "getting a bit cold isn't it?" and he said yes. The kids couldn't have cared less one way or another. End of story.

What is the chance of getting Canadian Benchmarks added to the Benchmark Database? They can be accessed here: http://www.geod.rncan.gc.ca/index_e/index_e.html Thanks, Nelson