Wupierto

I was SCUBA diving along the base of some cliffs far below historic Manzamo Park in the crystal waters of Okinawa, Japan. An hour into our shallow dive, my buddy Paul and I spotted a partially submerged cave, which I insisted that we explore. We meandered our way along the vibrant living coral to the entrance of the cavern. The opening measured about 40’ high with only 15’ showing above the surface of the water into the jagged volcanic cliffs. As we swam into the cave, the water became brackish from the mixture of the fresh water dripping down from the huge stalactites above, into the salty East China Sea. Once in the cave, small dive light in hand, I weaved between great stalagmites, swimming in and out of their eerie dark shadows until I surfaced about 50’ in. What I saw was breathtaking. I was in a cathedral-sized chamber with beautiful blue reflected sunlight dancing along the cave’s rough walls and smooth stalactites. The blinding brightness of the cavern’s entrance contrasted harshly with the pitch black void that watched us from the other end of the cave. A small ledge no wider than a sidewalk, but in some places narrower than a board started from about 20 feet from the entrance and ran along the cave wall into the darkness. Since the ledge was about 6’ above the waves, Paul and I had serious difficulty climbing (with HEAVY dive gear) to a wide section of a rock shelf. We left our gear and crept along the ledge toward the blackness that waited ahead. We noticed small finger caves peppered throughout the cavern’s walls, but we kept to the ledge. In places we had to climb the damp stone to keep moving further to the unseen rear of the cave. A few hundred yards in, we noted large alcoves off to the side, which had faded Japanese Hiragana and Kanji written on the walls- Paul and I can’t read Japanese. As the entrance faded into a small, bright mouse hole, we finally spotted the end of the cavern. It was rough, like the rest of the cave, with the odd exception of a smooth rectangle section, about the size of a standard door. The ‘door’ was clearly just as solid and seamless as the rest of the cave, but about belly-height, we noticed an anomaly that made our hair stand on end. Etched into the smooth stone wall were three names, American names (we think); George, Catherine and Chelsea. How did they get here? Who were these people? What’s up with the smoothed rectangle- it was obviously done by man, right? Thoroughly shaken, we left the cave with a since of unexplained urgency. This was a defining moment in our lives, years later Paul and I still spoke of the “George/Catherine/Chelsea” door on a weekly basis. It was a great, unsolved mystery in our lives that cemented a friendship for over three decades. Paul died from a skydiving mishap in 2003, on the day before we were scheduled to fly to Okinawa and document the cave for a friend of ours that was a professor at Rice University. Always the enigma, Paul had told me that he would take that mystery to his grave unless we solved it. True to his word, under his epitaph, in small letters was a secret nod to me. It read Geo/Ca/Che. So I did.

I’m a flashlight nut. Surefire makes great lights, but they are expensive and there are better options for your use. In my opinion, the best lights for geocaching would be a headlamp (I prefer the Black Diamond Spot LED headlamp for its battery life, weight and brightness) and a dive light from Underwater Kinetics (check out the UK SL4. It’s ridiculously bright (xenon bulb), and runs on 4 C batteries. It is also reasonably priced (approx. $20), practically bullet proof (has a rubberized bezel), waterproof and very reliable). For brightness portability, price, durability and battery life, this would be my Dream Team. Good luck. Wu

I’m a flashlight nut. Surefire makes great lights, but they are expensive and there are better options for your use. In my opinion, the best lights for geocaching would be a headlamp (I prefer the Black Diamond Spot LED headlamp for its battery life, weight and brightness) and a dive light from Underwater Kinetics (check out the UK SL4. It’s ridiculously bright (xenon bulb), and runs on 4 C batteries. It is also reasonably priced (approx. $20), practically bullet proof (has a rubberized bezel), waterproof and very reliable). For brightness portability, price, durability and battery life, this would be my Dream Team. Good luck. Wu

Thank you very much- you folks have been overly generous in your advice! If this forum is an indication of the types of folks that I'll be running into, then I'm very excited get into geocaching. I usually research the heck out of a toy before I will actually buy it and after some more study (including playing with most of the GPS at my local REI and Fry’s), I have decided on the Delorme PN-40. I really like the idea of paperless geocaching and, while the Oregon seemed feature rich and very user friendly, the Delorme had focused on quicker satellite acquisition, boosted processing power and is reviewed to work a little better under tree cover. I'm leaning toward the PN-40SE since the Special Edition has 7 more GB of internal memory. My two greatest concerns over Delorme were the 800 character limit and international maps (I like to dive), but I have read in several places that Delorme is aware that the 800 limit is an issue and will address it in a firmware update. The maps, I can simply purchase ala carte if an island bug bites me. This was a great experience and by-far the most helpful forum to which I have ever posted! Many thanks, Wupierto

Geocachers- I need some advice, please. I am planning to taking up geocaching with my 4 y/o and I’m in a pickle as to which GPS unit will benefit me as a newbie and down the line. I’m reaching out to anyone in this forum that has experience with the more advanced units, but can share their opinion in layman’s terms (Forest Gump it for me). The units that have been suggested to me by other neophytes: DeLorme PN-40, Oregon 400T, Garmin 60CSx and the eTrex Legend HCx. I realize that there have been other posts regarding many of these units, but I could use some guidance with my circumstance in mind. I am a gadget nut, so I know that I want a color screen, WAAS enabled, waterproof and rugged (4 year olds drop stuff), but I don’t know what paperless caching is yet. I saw a unit that had Google Earth photos in it and this really appealed to me, although I don’t know if the price of these extra maps is exorbitant. Any/all advice is GREATLY appreciated!