Darwin473

The wonders of the human brain. I find it annoying and will call out a throwdown if I have enough evidence to be reasonably sure, but I can understand the mentality behind it. I would imagine that most people who read up the rules and want to play properly start out only logging finds when they've signed the log. But it'll be a bit like dirt building up in the house. It'll be a little bit at a time, gradually changing a little each day. The person who lives there wouldn't notice as the change is slow and they get used to it, but then someone comes to visit and points out that the house is filthy. Some people would go "oops" and fix the problem, others will double down and get upset because they would never live in a filthy house so the visitor must be wrong!

I love it!

I've found a few coins as well, but the main reason for the post title is in case this thread comes up on a search if someone uses a search engine for "money in geocaches" or similar search. Even if it only teaches one person, that's good enough for me. There's a good to high chance that the two things are unrelated; but considering how long that container was there since the first CO placed it in 2012 without issue, it does seem to be quite the coincidence. In other places I've seen comments from other CO's upset about new users harvesting caches and taking them home since they don't know any better. Agreed, so much. I still consider myself new to the hobby, but I very quickly changed my description from a treasure hunt to "a worldwide game of hide and seek". I still think GC has a bit of a vested interest in TB's going missing, since they sell them and want people to buy more. (Okay, I'll put the tin foil hat away! )

Yesterday I went out and was checking on some of my caches and found Return of Bee Hide was all smashed up. I've removed the cache container and waypoints and archived it, as I'm not going to be able to repair it or get a new container to redeploy it. I chalked it up to drunk idiots and didn't think too much more of it. It looked to me like someone took a hammer to it, but I figured someone must have been bashing it with a rock or against a fence. Today I'm reading in a few different places that there may be a few Tik Tok videos trending claiming that GeoCaches contain money. I don't have that app and can't say I'm too interested in it so I'm not going to go looking for the videos, but it's a bit disappointing if that was the cause of someone destroying a cache. In this case, if that was what actually happened then I can see why someone would get the idea that there might be money in there as this cache was a metal box with a hefty padlock on it (it was a multi, with the combo to the padlock at the first waypoint), placed pretty close to the centre of a city. As far as I know (I can't see PMO caches) it was the biggest one in the city centre, with a 3L (0.8gallon) lock n lock inside the outer metal box. Bit sad to lose a container that had been in play since 2012 and was two caches for two different CO's, but that's what happens when we put things out in the wild where anyone can come along and play with it - even in ways we don't want them to. Luckily no TB's were lost.

I had a quick look around the Kamp Koral TB map (best viewed on a computer, hard to use on mobiles) and noticed that in Australia, pretty much all bar one of the Kamp Koral TB's currently in the wild are Gary tags. There's one "travelling the seven seas with Plankton" tag in Melbourne, but the other 21 that I saw were all Gary. Not a ran or anything, more of an interesting observation.

I'm impressed that there's one in the Northern Territory, near where I live. Though this is Australia, so "near" is a relative term. It's close enough that I could go log it if I really, really wanted to - but I don't think I can justify a 620km (385mi) seven-hour drive to the next town and back just to log a TB. A day trip and two tanks of gas.

I'd disagree, unless the spider was properly preserved and/or rendered "uneatable" in some way. Just because I can't smell something, doesn't mean other critters can't. I've had what I thought were 100% clean plastic containers still attracting bugs and things trying to find remnants to nibble on. If I had a lovely spider to show off, I'd prefer to seal it up in epoxy resin or something similar instead. Lose that "oh, it's real" factor, but it would last a lot longer. Oh wait, yup - almost guaranteed to get stolen. The ones kunarion and barefootjeff posted are good examples, and have pretty much the same effect.

That's how I think, except that I skip the "let it go missing" step and go straight to the "release a proxy" step right from the get go. Keep the nice, funky, rare, or otherwise TB safe at home, send out something else with the TB code on it. Get the best of both worlds - keep a nice TB and have the code roaming the world. And when it goes missing, create and release another proxy!

It can be both exciting and horrible. I have a TB with a specific cache destination - it's covered two states so far ... in the wrong direction, then stalled last year. Oh well, them's the winds of fate.

Just putting out my unwanted and worthless opinions. For a place like Centre Point tower, then I would think it's a valid placement due to it being a tourist destination. Someone who is a tourist and going there anyway would be happy to get a cache there for no additional cost. Though I do understand someone who wasn't planning on going there and had a Pokemon mentality would be upset at being "forced" to pay an entry fee to get that smiley. Having one inside a real estate agency or a fancy electronics doo-dad shop wouldn't be valid, for the reasons others have already covered.

In my experience, the "best" solution is to buy more TB's. My first purchase was four (I needed to pay postage, so wasn't worth buying 1 or 2). When you only have a few, you become emotionally invested in them. I was constantly checking up on my first four and fretting about what was happening to them (or not happening!) I'm now up to 23 (and using proxies instead of sending out originals - that's a complete other essay) and I'm much more relaxed about what happens to them individually. Plus I'm more likely to get an email about one of them being picked up / dropped off if there are more of them.

Cool, thanks for sharing! I wonder if this whole Ukraine thing and Russia pulling out of space projects is going to have a flow on effect on Woodsat?

Little frustrating that there is already a proxy roaming around, but that's one of the many risks TB's face when out travelling. What I'd do in your situation is to message both the owner of the TB and whoever currently holds the proxy and let them know you have the original. My also be worth adding a "Discovered" log onto the TB. Then it's up to whoever responds first. The owner's response should carry more weight since it's theirs. They may ask for the original to be posted home and leave the proxy travelling, or they may want the original to go out again and have the proxy sent home. Either might not respond, or neither might respond. If neither gives an answer, I'd just continue hanging on to it for a bit longer, and add the TB to your Watch list. If the proxy gets put into a cache that is archived due to vandalism or destruction, that's a good cue to re-release the original. I wouldn't have both out at the same time - like you said, it'd cause confusion. And possibly trigger the TB being locked.

On the official app: Easy caches are green (Traditional 2/2 or less) "Advanced" caches are shown, but greyed out with a "get premium" prompt (Multi, Challenge, Letterbox, Traditionals over 2/2, etc) Premium Member Only caches do not show up at all - no icon on map On the website: Easy caches are green Advanced caches are green or other colors (such as orange for Multi) Premium Member Only caches do not show up at all - no icon on map, no access to the page details if you know the GC code

Un-Challenge failed successfully? I don't know why I was still thinking this promo was going until December. Managed to collect 27 of the 28 Souvenirs - missed out on Europa. Since they no longer show up on the caches I can't go look now to see which cache(s) I should have gone for to complete the series, but I know the last few that I'd found had mostly been repeats of ones I already had. I suspect that caches I'd previously found had Europa's? Oh well, I should have gone out caching more often!

(Excuses, gebruik Google Translate). Als je een trackable wilt kopen, kun je een van deze winkels proberen: International Retailers (geocaching.com)

Brilliant! Looks like I missed out, but can't complain as I'm sure they had more applications than they had TB's to give away. Looking at the map, there's a mess of them in the US, a plethora in Europe and ... zero anywhere else.

That would be my first question, it seems like the black container might float and pop up in a heavy rain. The second thing I would consider is how to reset. If someone takes 20 minutes of fishing to snag the black container and draw it up to sign the log, are they going to be willing to spend another 20 minutes to put it back? Assume people are inherently lazy, they'll be motivated to grab the logbook, less so to put it back. One possible solution (which might make the rain problem worse) is to add a funnel-like part at the top, help guide the black container back into position? Wouldn't make it any easier to fish out (but easier to spot), but should make the reset process easier. For the rain problem... add some holes in the bottom of the tube so water can drain out?

Are you seeing the old information on the website or on your app? I believe cache information is also stored locally on the app to save on bandwidth, though I could be wrong. Clearing your app cache (the digital stuff on your phone) may help force it to grab new information. If the old information is showing on the website, that is a different issue, possible that your edit didn't take - maybe try it again?

Wooo! Congratulations!

Wow, is it still there or did it get picked up?

I read not that long ago that Nasa "only" uses pi to about ten places when doing orbital mechanics. That may be 100% false as I read it on the internet, but you do get diminishing returns for extra digits. Though you do get sent to math jail for rounding pi to 3.

Pretty happy to wake up to an email of a new log for one of my TB's! After spending 410 days chilling out on a cache overlooking the city, Rustle, Wildlife Finder is off on new adventures! As a side mote, I'd set up a TB Rescue Mission for my TB on Project-GC, which is now completed due to it being picked up. I don't think that affected this TB (at least it isn't mentioned on the finder's log) - but if you have a TB that has been sitting in a cache for a while it may be worth checking out Project-GC rescue missions.

Shhh, don't disrupt my fantasy narrative with annoying things like facts!

My new(ish) laptop keeps prompting me to "upgrade" to W11. I'm just counting down the time until the warranty runs out, then I'm swapping out the drive and putting linux on this puppy. Okay, I'll go back in my box now.