gjensen

The geocache involved was: GC3NMG7 Hold til venstre (Cache title translates to: "Keep Left"). The cache was located in the ocean, on a green marker bouy approximately 150 meters (500 ft.) offshore, at a water depth of about 5 meters (15 ft.). The water temperature was 12 degrees Celcius (54 deg. Fahrenheit). The man who drowned attempted to swim to the bouy to retrieve the cache. He got in trouble, and his friend attempted to rescue him, but had to return to shore. He was retrieved in hypothermic condition from the shore by a Royal Danish Air Force rescue helicopter who flew him to hospital in Odense about 62 km (39 miles) away , where he subsequently recovered. On arrival at the hospital the air crew got the message that another swimmer was in the water and returned to the scene, where they spotted the first man, floating under water, and retrieved him exactly one hour after retrieving his friend. He, too, was flown to hospital, where he died. The time of the second retrieval was 15:40 UTC, late afternoon (daylight conditions). This incident has shaken the Danish geocaching community. I can only agree with my good geobuddy OZ2CPU "please take care out there". And think before you act.

I have asked Pli - several times - if he would consider reminting this coin. I get a consistent "no". I personally fail to understand this attitude. Is being rare a quality in itself for a coin? Since a direct remint is hardly going to happen - no matter how many times you ask the coin creators - I was thinking perhaps a new variety. New colors, new metal? What do you think? Creative and serious suggestions, please. If something interesting comes up, I will try to persuade them, again. Thanks.

In Denmark, we generally use City Navigator Europe maps for our GPSs. This works very well, but of course this is not actually TOPOGRAPHIC maps. You can get additional extremely detailed maps of about 100 selected areas in Denmark (mostly woods) on this site: http://www.postha.dk/. Maps can be downloaded for free and installed in your GPS. Instructions on the site are entirely in Danish, but feel free to contact the maker: e-mail: psh|a|postha.dk.

From my perspective here in Denmark, Europe, you Americans seem very lucky. You are probably correct that you do, indeed, have the legal right to NOT pay European VAT on your online purchases. Whether or not the seller is able to figure out how not to charge it on your purchases, is up to the seller. In the case of geocoinshop.de, I can only recommend this webshop, having bought quite a considerable number of coins from them already. However, as this shop is one of the largest operators on the European market, I do actually feel that your request that they figure out how to not charge VAT on out-of-EU orders, is by now quite justified. Personally, of course, I am quite happy to pay the 19% German VAT as this is cheaper than the 25% Danish VAT I would otherwise have to pay. Importing coins from the US into Europe is quite a different matter. Whereas the Americans have a legal right not to pay VAT, I, on the contrary, have a legal obligation to pay 25% import VAT on my purchases. Fortunately the Customs Department of Post Danmark (Danish Mail) kindly helps me meet that obligation by providing a customs handling service which ensures that I do not get my package until I pay whatever amount of VAT that they have figured out I must pay. Plus, in some cases, an additional customs charge of about 2-3%. For this service, I am charged a flat fee of approx. $32, no matter the value of the shipment. Did I mention that the $32 fee does include VAT of the fee itself? Or that the value of the package (of which the 25% VAT is calculated) is calculated as the declared value PLUS the actual postage used by the sender? Or that the customs handling procedure usually takes from 1 to 3 weeks? If anyone detects a tiny spot of irony in the above paragraph, they are absolutely correct. Seriously, I have the following request that I rutinely make of anyone shipping geocoins from the US to Denmark: Could you please: 1. Use the smallest possible physical package. Large packages are much more likely to receive the full customs handling procedure. 2. Tick "item is a gift" or "other" on customs label (note that customs labels are only required for packages weighing one pound or more). 3. Declare a very low value, like "$10", irrespective of the actual value. 4. Do not include any invoice or any other paperwork whatsoever in the package. Packages are rutinely opened by customs and the value determined either from the label or any invoice that may be found. 5. Use a private, not business, sender address. I have found that the large majority of US sellers are happy to comply with these wishes. A very few tell me that they do not wish to do this for moral reasons, in which case I tell them to do as they please, and go ahead with the transaction anyway.

email sent, request to buy 15 ea. for resale (at cost) to other Danish geocachers!

I am based in Denmark, and for all new cache listings published in Danish only, our national reviewer Lewa Nuva routinely posts a note stating: "Hi - Thanks for your new cache. Please add an English translation to the cache, so that the many foreign cachers can also enjoy your cache". The large majority of Danish caches now have at least a summary in English, in addition to the Danish text. What we would dearly like to see, is a similar initiative from our friends in Germany, and most particularly, the Netherlands. I would suggest that Groundspeak should ask all the volunteer reviewers in the non-English speaking countries to kindly follow the above example. English translations are mostly required for hints and multicaches.

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Yes, you can buy it at geodepot.no. In fact it is now shipping, and they do have a few left. It is quite expensive at EUR 12.50 each.

Geocachers in Denmark (Europe) are considering making a national DENMARK geocoin. The discussion is still in the brainstorming phase - however funding has been secured. No final coin design has been agreed upon yet. In order to help us determine the size of the initial production run, it would be most helpful if readers of this forum could kindly tell us if you would be interested in buying such a coin, and if so, how many? We would expect the coin to be trackable on geocaching.com and the price to be in the usual US$10 range, plus shipping. If you have other ideas as to what price would be acceptable, please let us know. Please answer the following question: Assuming the coin is reasonably attractive and costs about $10 each, how many DENMARK geocoins would you be interested in buying? Your participation in this survey does, of course, in no way constitute an order, or pre-order for this item. We will use any answers submitted solely to help us determine how many coins to produce. However, if you wish us to contact you, once the coins actually becomes available, please say so in your answer. Thank you very much in advance, gjensen Copenhagen, Denmark