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Darwin473

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Everything posted by Darwin473

  1. I recall reading about a multi around a lake, where if you followed all the stops the final was under the first one! It may have been a series of caches instead of a multi, but that seems like the kind of thing that is creative and clever but would get old quick if lots of people started doing it.
  2. Surprisingly, no. Either there is more than one, or more likely my terrible memory is giving me false information! The one I recall had a photo of the "cache", which was a metal plate on the sea floor inscribed with the cache number and something else. The reason I remember it, was I had "planned" (ie never-gonna-happen fantasy) to get a magnetic TB to stick to it, but then thinking the plate probably wouldn't be steel so a magnet wouldn't stick. Even if I had the spare money to go a few miles down, I doubt my wife would let me!
  3. Well there was this one cache that I remember reading about, down in the depths... Can't find it now though. Anybody know the one I'm talking about?
  4. Yay! I love success stories.
  5. I too find these numbers surprising. Though I'm slightly biased as we have a lot of bushfires out here in Australia, and a lot of rural caches are claimed by the flames. Mind you, this is purely anecdotal from a few cache losses that I've seen here, with way to small a sample size to be able to quantify "a lot"!
  6. It would be so nice if there was some magical way of knowing exactly what happens to a TB when it drops off the map. Did it accidentally fall out of someone's pocket? Did a bird grab something shiny? Is it on display on someone's shelf? Realistically, it would really have to be magic - as was demonstrated by the semi-recent discussion I saw about a TB with an Apple Airtag on it. I completely disagree with your three year line in the sand as being the definition of "missing" - but I can't dispute your data sample or conclusion! I'd have wanted a much shorter time frame to declare one MIA, but that's because I like to re-release mine with proxies. I haven't yet had the circumstance of having two copies come up in play at the same time, but it is entirely possible. Thank you for another well-researched post. Your insights and available data pool are fascinating!
  7. Is there a specific multi you would like help with? Some are quite easy, and the description might say something like "go to the posted location, walk 100 feet due north, cache is in the post". Others are a bit more complicated, like "go to posted location, find the Important Battle plaque - use the dates to find next location. At next location, find Historical Statue and count the number of...". And then there are insane ones like GC63GEV Great Aussie Icon Hunt in Australia, which requires visiting 15 different locations across 4 states on a 2,445 mile drive. That one takes a bit more effort, though there is another one coming back in the opposite direction if you want to make it a round trip. As lee737 said, the key is to read the description.
  8. I think that might be a browser issue rather than an app issue? When you log in, does it give you a "remember me" option? Or does the browser on your phone have an "always forget" option enabled you could turn off?
  9. The oldest one that I've had go through my hands was Marc's Koala Georg. Originally released in May 2009 from Germany, it traveled the world for a bit before getting stuck in a cache that was archived. Sat there for three years until I accidentally resurrected the cache and released the two TB's that had been languishing. Goerg had a simple mission - visit cache Spot the Koala in Australia and grab a photo. It had previously visited the area around 2016, but hadn't reached the target cache before heading interstate again. I live in another state thousands of miles away, so I thought I'd do the right thing, had a hunt around on various FB GC groups and find someone who was near the target cache and could take it there to complete its mission. I successfully found someone and posted it to them in Jan 2021. Sadly, that person then kept it, wandering for year and bit, adding 64 pages of logs with "just checking in" and didn't take it to the mission cache.
  10. Just completed the third week's puzzle (and I believe the last one, unless I'm mistaken?) Was a good one, not as obvious from one or two clues like some of the others were. Jumped over to a search engine to do some sleuthing in order to find the right area to search. I liked it!
  11. One possible option which would also require an expenditure of funds but less than to purchase a quantity of GPSr is: I have seen a group that had a quantity of actual letterboxes (or similar permanent boxes) mounted around the grounds. Each was marked with a number (or can be a name). Prior to the start, the coordinator puts a message, code or instruction in each (or some) of the letterboxes. The participants are organised into groups, and each was given a list of letterboxes to visit. The lists were different, so the groups couldn't "cheat" by following each other. Depending on the size of the group, a different participant was in charge of leading to the group to the next letterbox so they all get a chance to be the searcher. In their case, each group also had a hand-held radio, and when they got to their location they had to call in the code they found in the letterbox. The code would "prove" they found that letterbox, and the other groups couldn't just listen to others because they didn't know which letterboxes other groups were visiting. First team back wins. As it's for PE, alternatives could be that different letterboxes hold an instruction to find a different item and carry it back to the central location. Alternatively, they could be required to take a photo of something and either show it on their phone or send it to the coordinator. For a less strenuous workout, they just need to fill in the code words on their list. Or they need to visit their letterboxes in order, which each hold a number, at each they get part of the lat/long of a country, county, city or famous building (depending on how accurate you want it to be) and use their phones to look up that lat/long and report what they find there. This example is probably closer to orienteering than geocaching but once set up, it would be easy to repeat - even with the same students. Just need the effort to go around placing the instructions / codes / messages in each letterbox and writing up the lists. Letterboxes shouldn't need locking to prevent interference from non-class students as any others that get curious and open the letterbox would just see a bit of paper with a word or number, or something written in whiteboard marker or chalk. Administration may be more willing to release funds for a quantity of metal boxes or letterboxes from Lowes which will last several years rather than some electronic handheld units which could be broken and harder to replace as Hiking Cockroachess pointed out. Or combine with shop class and have students make wooden ones in a variety of styles? Permanent or semi-permanent fixed hides may be easier to get approval for, as students wouldn't get "inspired" to pull things apart, climb under / over things or start digging looking for a hidden container.
  12. Mine is 200 days. Oops. I can see where MNTA is coming from, my philosophy is that you can't enjoy summer without winter, or day without night. Plus a big dose of GeoElmo6000's "don't stress about it" ideal.
  13. I'm a Basic member, and the wording is "Upgrade to see more - Become a Geocaching Premium member to access more geocache types". New players often confuse Advance caches (restricted by the app) with PMO caches (restricted by account type). My workaround is to use my phones' browser to access the GC website directly as well as the app. Works great for me, and the only thing I miss out on is PMO caches. There are heaps is Darwin that I haven't been able to go after yet, but I'm on a pretty tight budget. My plan is to get a one-month Premium account when I'm next on holidays and time it so that I can do some PMO at my destination and then some in my home location when I get back... but it's going to be a while before I go on holiday again.
  14. At the risk of being "that guy" and blowing my own horn, I'm pretty chuffed with how my acrylic geo-coin proxies turned out. The photos don't do them justice, and they feel really nice in the hand too. I think I may have done too good a job with them, as they were both picked up after I released them, then no more logs for either. One was picked up between Jan and May 2022 and the other one in early April 2022. No idea what they're doing now.
  15. I agree with your method of using drops / exchanges as a measure of "success". I could have dropped at TB at GCG822 just after it was placed in 2022 and it would have survived in the wild for two decades so far. But I doubt that would count as it would be essentially impossible for someone else to retrieve.
  16. These reports of yours are brilliant! I have this issue, just like everyone else. I know what's happened to my TB's and I know of a few that I've seen / moved or the more famous ones. But that is a drop in the ocean and not a representative sample. Your data set is a marvel to behold. Thank you for sharing!
  17. Football? Soccer? Yards? Meh. Everyone knows the one true measurement of the internet is the banana. This makes sense. I had a go, and my feedback is almost exactly what MartyBartfast said - I had almost the same experience and thought process except that after the first clue, I initially thought it was the Taj Mahal - but then worked out the right country a few clues later. Same method for the final find. Niantic (the company that makes Pokemon Go) have a prior game called Ingress. Same as PoGo it requires players to visit real world locations in person but also has a "drone" feature that allows players to visit locations further away. I wonder if a similar thing could be done with Wherigo - use a virtual drone to virtually visit caches around the world? I assume any GC dev or person who actually knows how to make these sorts of things just had an aneurysm at the amount of work I just casually rattled off with 21 words, so I doubt such a thing would actually happen!
  18. Hi! Welcome, it's great to see teachers making learning more fun and engaging for students. What I would do (depending on how much effort, expense and time you have available) is start by getting the students to hide a container with a note on the school grounds. Simple rules - can't damage school property, no shovels, no climbing up onto the roof; the types of rules that one would expect at a school and conveniently are also in keeping with GeoCaching guidelines. Also a good idea to highlight that they can't look like it might possibly be a bomb! The note can simply be their name and a random code you assign each student. The reason for this is to give the students a bit of exposure to hiding things where other non-class students won't accidentally spot them, hopefully they are out long enough that they get to learn about which containers are more likely to last, which ones leak; and depending on how it is set up - how to give clues to other students in your class. Bonus points tied to both how many times students from your class find their container negated by if a non-class student finds it. After having done this (or while it is running in the background) they could have an assignment to find out about existing geocaches in the area and do a study / report on which ones have lasted the longest / got the most favorite points / are most well known. Or some other metric to try and learn about what makes a "good" cache. Hopefully the students get engaged. I know with the shorter attention span people have now with these always-on devices (I have this issue, and I'm in my 40's!) it can be hard to get students to engage. The first part may also be good for identifying which students would benefit most from putting out caches and which might be more interested in going out and destroying things. Not a result we want, but something that needs to be considered if the "go hide a cache" part is a mandatory part of the curriculum they can't opt out of.
  19. You could also take a photo of the code and send it to an active member on here (such as cerberus1) for a second opinion on what the code might be. Just don't post it publicly. If you haven't logged it yet, it may still be showing in the inventory of the cache you picked it up from, so you could try sharing the reference number or url for the TB here and somebody who has previously logged it may recognise it.
  20. It's also possible the person is not an english speaker and is using a translator to change their words from their language to english? I know I've tried communicating with people online in other languages, but I usually include both the english text and the language I'm translating to, so they can compare the mangled mess I sent in their language with the original.
  21. My general goal for 2023 is to not die. I've had a 100% success rate so far, and this morning I achieved a new personal best for number of consecutive days living. I intend to keep this goal going for a while yet! I'm in a similar situation, but a little further along. My wife's daughter is now on her P plates and getting into race car driving. It's her first season and off to a bit of a rocky start (one of the things about cheap car racing is that they tend to break - a lot) and it's been sucking up all of my spare time. As the designated navigator / passenger / adult supervisor, I'm also hoping this doesn't conflict with my goal!
  22. Are you using any Ad blockers or similar software? Or someone else who uses your computer might be using somthing similar? From my limited experience, that's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head about what could be blocking a specific url but not the whole website.
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