fotimyr

After it reappeared in Greece, in the same cache it was reported missing from four years earlier (go figure), the coin came to Norway. I placed it in a cache on a summit-of-sorts in late July '12, but after two more hops it's been out of circulation since September '12. It's in the hands of a cacher with 21 finds and no logins since January '13. Some TBs lead a troubled life indeed

I do the same with my D3.5+ puzzle caches since I think nobody's entitled to a find. I made a couple of pretty easy mysteries just to balance the universe though, and there are plenty of easy trads and puzzles in the area anyway. No reason to dilute someone's personal D5 "value" just because someone else is impatient or on the verge of a full-on OCD attack over a lonely map icon. I *will* answer emails begging for hints, but the answer may not contain an actual hint

That's the tricky bit; the CO isn't missing, but have (apparently) moved some distance away and is regularly finding and logging caches elsewhere. Hence the question about adopting it, not least since other caches in my area by this CO have been adopted by others. The cache in question is this one. Earlier I managed to get a ruined cache with a fled owner archived, after which I recycled some of his cache description and put up a better installation nearby. It somehow seems inappropriate to do it this time.

Cool! You own one of those? Pro tip: some Garmin GPS receivers have a "C" in their model name, which designates "Cloaking Device". Unfortunately, it only works when nobody else is around, and the promised firmware update to fix this have never appeared. Maybe just as well, since the lightning bolts, distorted athmosphere and cracking sounds when it's engaged, are dead giveaways.

I have also replaced a cache container, but only because the plastic box was cracked and everything inside was rusty and soggy. I mailed the geocaching-retired cache owner in advance since the last year's worth of logs all complained about the container (via NM logs), but never got a reply. I also offered to adopt it, but never got a reply to that either. The cache should technically have been archived, but it's a tricky subject, this ...

Tourists on bikes are in a different league! They usually come-a-biking from countries where cycling is nice transportation, not a traffical deatmatch Hope you had a nice trip!

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but the majority of Wikipedia articles where there are locations involved, have map coordinates near the article headline. And while we're on the subject of sunken warships, check out S09 15.000 E160 00.000. You know what's there?

We use a car (an Italian one ) to get to our "rally point" and hike from there. This is Norway, where the only people found on bicycles are depressed, suicidal 40-somethings in expensive sponsor-ridden spandex clothing on 5.000 dollar bikes and a seemingly birthright right-of-way. Which means they don't use bike lanes. Ever. Norway is roughly the size of California and has about 5 million people in it. It is deserted, and uphill both ways. That means "car".

Success for me is having 13 people watching the mystery, and no finds for the first couple of months My latest D4.5 mystery was found on the publish date (July 1), but the guy didn't know how he solved it. He just stumbled across the solution (being a math guy and all). A month later, the FTF hounds brute forced it (map wise) and apparently picked the padlock on the container to sign the log. In my mind that's success, but it also shows how desperate some people are for smileys.

Hmmm, yeah, you have a point. The stress and hysteria involved is actually a bit comical, and the FTF hounds often slightly remind me of compulsive hoarders. No reason to enable them, I guess. That being said, I tend to filter out the FTF hounds' logs as "not real finds". I don't know why. Must be my subconscious or something.

If you, for some reason, think "we" shouldn't, I'm more interested in hearing the reasons for that.

I have left an FTF pin in a couple of my caches, plus the "official" Groundspeak FTF coin in a couple of others. The FTF pin is designed by Smort78. People seem to enjoy them. I also did door number 5 in the local geocaching advent calendar last year, so the FTF coin was for the fifth-to-find My latest mystery cache also has an FTF coin for a prize, but only junior geocachers (under 18) are eligible. The local FTF hounds have enough coins, methinks ... Smort78s FTF pin: The coin:

So ... lemme get this straight. Each key holder set cost 0.89 cent, but you paid $4.45 for the lot? Looks you've been royally ripped off, unless you paid the store owner with a $4.5 bill and he somehow managed to fumble the change. Better re read the OP... two for 89 cents... 44.5 each. x 10 = 4.45 Doug 7rxc He wrote two for .89 cents. Spot the decimal point and win a prize

Yup. An oil based wood primer topped with three layers of wet-on-wet wood stain will last for years outside, provided it is above ground. If you use galvanized hinges with a brass pin and a layer of wood stain, they will never rust.

I agree. It must be one of the more pointless things you can do in an already pointless for-fun game. However, the world record for cheesiness must go to the "speshul needs" cachers who create a D5 mystery with a sock puppet account, only to claim an FTF with their real account hours later. That it later turned out to be technically unsolvable only adds to the comedy. But to each their own. If you think you're "winning", you are. "Winning", that is.

Who said they use the same datum in Gotham as we do? Actually, if take Gotham Geographic Survey's map grid, lay it over the one we normally use and convert the coordinates, the entry to the Batcave is the doors to the restrooms at Batman Airport in Turkey. Coincidence? I think not.

The coordinates in the film are N38 53.876 W077 02.221.

Fabricate your own wooden box, paint it with several layers wet-on-wet wood stain inside and out and put a regular Lock & Lock inside. These installations lasts several years around these parts (Norway). We don't exactly have Arizona climate here (it's more like the Canadian NW territories, only with more vegetation and more roads), but temperatures ranging from -20C to +30C, snow, slush, rain, baking sun and whatever else you can think of. If you can elevate this container a meter and a half above ground (five feet), you have a winner. I agree with the above: the ultimate plastic geocache container does not exist, and there is no such thing as "maintenance free".

Yup. And then you open the cache container with a well aimed slug from your 12 gauge?

... doomsday preppers ...

If you have an Android smartphone (an ancient Android 2.x will do nicely), you can dump all the GPX files onto it and open them in c:geo. I have a 60 Csx, and that's what I do. I mean, I already had to download the GPX files to populate the Waypoints list. C:geo - which is free - does not need a cell signal or the GPS turned on to open and display pretty much all of the info from the cache listing, hints, pictures, waypoints, atributes and old logs included. I'm not sure how the official pay-for app from Groundspeak works in this respect.

Mostly, yes, but not uniformly so across the globe. Some Google map tiles/areas/whatever seem to be poorly geolocated and should probably not be used for anything but entertainment. Thus, with inaccuracies in Google Maps, in the CO's GPS and your own GPS, nothing can ever be spot on. You have to go to the general area and search Also remember that the coordinates on cache listings cannot give you EXACT placements anyway. The number format is too coarse. Here's an example. The coordinates to the yellow spot in the picture (a waymark, sort of) was pulled from the official national listings with an accuracy of +/- 3 cm (that's about an inch). Here's how it looks when you view the waypoint in Google Maps with DDD MM.MMM coordinates entered: It's "spot on" for most people, but actually it's not.

For some geocachers, some geocaches are best left unfound (or, indeed, unsearched for). Other geocachers may be less than interested in safe and easy finds. Besides, "safe place" and "dangerous" means different things to different people. I have a D4.5/T5 mystery which is both hard to solve and quite dangerous to log. People seem to have gone about it in a safe way, and they all liked the challenge of figuring out tough mental and physical problems. For others, there's the ignore list and perhaps the eternal beckoning of a tough problem followed by a stupidly dangerous undertaking. Some people like that too. To quote a guy I know who is into different things: "If I didn't almost die, what was the point?". Extreme, yes, but to each his own. Know your limitations and leave caches outside them alone.

If you are a cache owner, you can write a note on your own cache. You should then get an email containing a.o. a short style coord.info link to your profile. Other than that, I haven't found a way to see the short style PR "nick".

In my experience, the geocache icons are placed centered on the coordinates on the standard MapQuest maps (the "View larger map" link). However, if you use one of the map links on the cache listing page (the ones just before the logs start), most of them have various arrows, pointers and icons with tails which point to the coordinates. Tip: if you use the Google Maps link and switch to street view, the coordinate you searched for will show up as large, red pin in the picture, complete with shadow and everything. Useful-ish for planning urban searches, provided Google have street level pictures. None of this is any useful if the CO have listed poor coordinates, though.