Treasure Pirate

Good topic, and so many reasons why caches are disturbed. My leading theory on this points some blame at group-cachers that mean well in their bonding adventure, but dont' always follow through to replace the cache as found. I suspect that often the last person of the group to sign the log and replace the cache, is not the same person who first removed the cache from it's nice hiding spot. There's an inherent responsibility to that finder to assure the cache is adequately replaced. I totally understand the desire to sign the log and quickly move on to the next one (if your thing is all about the numbers), but other group members are hastily trying not to get left in the dust, and are often remiss in their responsibilities.

It's easy to change the multi to a traditional. I've done it when my multi was deemed too dangerous because of the traffic at the nearby intersection. My multi had finders crossing the intersection (at the crosswalks) a few times, but the thoughtless and careless drivers presented too much risk. I re-named the cache with the word [Traditional] at the end, and explained the reason for the change in type on the cache page. The Coordinates also need to be changed to the final cache location. In my case, it just made sense to make it an easier find than the high risk traffic situation. Good luck.

The way I look at it is, it's like advertising my product. I'll craft a nice cache page to market my free product to anyone who wants to read it, and might even be lucky enough to hook someone who would have otherwise overlooked this cache because of (insert reason here). There'll be plenty of geocachers who will come get my product whether they read the page or not, and don't care about the details. They might get burned by not reading the "fine print" of the offer, but nonetheless, they'll soon get their turn at the logbook if they can find it. It's those who are interested in the details and those who might not have come off the beaten path to find my cache that I'm interesting in enticing with my writup to find the goods. They'll have the benefit of reading the contract and knowing the dangers, limits, and cautions that are noted there, as well as the story or history that might be offered. It's a total compliment to have someone from outside my particular local area, come to find one of my caches because it interested them enough to venture beyond their own local area. I don't actually care if the page is read by those who will seek a cache, just because it's a new cache.

I actually enjoy building a cache page with clues and a good story, but have come to recognize that many people don't actually care. For them, the story, or bla bla bla part, is sometimes preceded by my note: "There are no clues in the text below this point". Interested parties may wish to read further and gain the full appreciation intended--uninterested parties might already be half-way out the door at this point, and won't need any of the fluff anyway.

I might go with a rhyme or some play on words. A nook or cranny of a tree might be a butt, knot or eye. How about: Goddard's Eye, 3 feet High Eye Spy, Goddard's I Butt, there's Knot'n Here Knott'n Butt Goddard's Eye

I would imagine that many geocachers don't read the entire published cache page, and are primarily interested in the coordinates, a few tidbits of info, and perhaps the clue before they are off to find the cache. Do you? I really enjoy all the effort some geocachers put into their final published page, and read it carefully for clues, puns, word play, or other humor they intended for the finder to enjoy. I'll enjoy the journey even more, if I understand what the cache owner is trying to convey on paper, and often pay close attention at GZ to really see what it is the owner has written about--whether it's in the cache name, clue, or story told on the cache page. Historical content about the area or clue are of most interest, and I really enjoy those finds.

Chicken Did the topic change to extraction of chicken off the bone? If it did--I love chicken--and find that tools are only necessary if it's really hot off the grill--otherwise just finger lickin' good. Uh, if the topic didn't change, then carry on, I'm not interested in replying to this thread.

Good luck selling your Sportrak Pro. I have the Sportrak map and really like it. I've been watching various Sportrak models selling on ebay these past few months, and see lots of people giving them up for good prices, much cheaper. Probably lots of people wanting to upgrade to newer full featured models, but I'm sure they'll miss their Sportrak when its gone.

I am working on publishing a bunch of caches in the next week, and appreciate what some have posted here. I've been working on making caches that require less maintenance, and this will be an opportunity to place these kinds of caches, with a new mindset and understanding that some caches are going to get moved. I'll continue to periodically check on them to see where they're migrating to, but will post a request in the ones that I think need to be respected for their original placement.

On more than a few occasions while I was out doing cache maintenance, I found my caches to be disturbed—they were not in the same condition or hiding place that I had carefully planned. Some were even moved close nearby to where I can only assume a geocacher thought they were hiding it better , or forgot where they found it and just placed it anywhere in the close proximity of GZ . Have you had any of this activity on your caches? I think it’s important to cautiously remove a cache from it’s pre-determined hiding spot, and take every precaution in making sure it gets replaced exactly as you found it. For the most part, a person hiding a cache will have invested a fair amount of pre-planning in determining the right mix of container, camo, affixing medium, and hiding place, before deploying his cache for the community to enjoy. Even the intricacies of a riddle, mystery, puzzle, or multi can be thrown off and disturbed if the cache re-placement was not respected. Plundering a cache’s contents has been beaten to death in other threads, but what are your thoughts on what I think is a lack of respect issue?

Dude, good luck selling your Sportrak Color on Ebay for $100. You'll sell it no problem, because they really are nice units, but too bad whoever buys it might not know that you posted the following about this same unit over in the GPS and Software Forum yesterday: "I have the Magellan SporTrak Color and am pretty happy with it xcept that it takes forever to warm up and well finding a signal in the woods even light woods seem to be a joke. " Your Ebay add didn't get into much of your assessment of the unit's performance, but included the following ambiguous statement "This GPS unit is practically new except that I opened the box and used it.". If you really want to maintain 100% Ebay seller rating because of your exceptional customer service, you might want to consider full disclosure, and/or allow some form of return policy

It probably was me, but my best plundering has been in AZ where the nieces and nephews live. It has been written her that kids absolutely don't understand stealth, and boy, it sure was a day filled with rediculous geocaching. It was nice to get back to just geocaching with my daughter, who is fairly careful of who's watching us.

I have indeed plundered a cache or two while caching with some nieces and nephews who absolutely had to have a trinket. The swag I brought along didn't make for an adequate trade, and I left a few buck and a handfull of coins. I have since set some rules when caching with other people's kids, and won't pay my way anymore, but will restrict the taking to one item only (for the whole party), with adequate trade.

It might even help if GC.com had a category when registering your caches, called "Theme Cache". Although many will still not care that the cache has a theme, I suspect the theme will live longer with greater integrity than they currently do, registered as a "Traditional Cache". Personally, I would read the cache page and honor the theme if I had something to trade within the theme, otherwise TNSL.

I've read this before, and found it a good read. Thanks for refreshing me on it. I'm in Northern California today on Spring Break with my daughter, and we just came in from finding a nice cache near Santa Rosa. By nice, I mean it was an excellent camo'd container, large enough to hold small trinkets, and placed in an area that was kid friendly with a reasonable challenge. -- It was loaded with soggy wet and rusty crap. She didnt' even want anything to trade, which is totally unlike her. We left a comparable item (that wasn't soggy or rusty) and at least enjoyed finding it. I aim to improve my own caches where I hide in my area of Southern CA.

Ive been working on a few theme caches, and have come to realize after reading these forums that the theme might not last long, and the dreams of the cache hider will quickly fade when the good swag dissappears. With a theme cache, there is an expectation that like-minded geocachers will be carrying something that suits the theme--which might be rare, so instead of TNSL, they'll gladly take some of your nice swag, since you were so kind to leave it. I'm ok with that now that I know it to be the norm, so my theme caches might not get as good of swag as I initially planned, and some of that good swag might be better passed off in caches as equal trade for other's good swag.

I would bet this could be a big thing with many geocachers who seem to live in a virtual world anyway, with their virtual dropoff and pickup of coins that never leave their safe collection at home, as well as the virtual "finding" of coins viewed at events. I agree with a previous poster about geocaching being about getting out for the adventure--but definitely see a market here for those desiring an opportunity to claim king of the hill from their comfy armchair. It's not for me, but good luck with that. Oh yeah, and that big text was rediculous to read.

As Redcoyote 12 points out: "Starting to sound like Amazing Race a little." I like the quadrant idea, providing some boundaries and separation. Unless all teams start at the apex of all quadrants, teams will hide closest to that apex for a quick advantage to get to the other quads, or they'll hide their gamepieces at the furthest point in their quandrant, providing more travel time for competing teams. Either way allows for strategy to take over how each team operates efficiently. The game could be over in about an hour or two if only one gamepiece was hidder per team, so you might want to have each team hide 2 or 3, for subsequent rounds of play.

Dude, you're onto something with the named rocks. What if all players where to meet at the same location, view each others Rocks or game piece, then scatter across town in different directions to drop their piece at a particular time, say 9am. After 9am, they can search for any other players to obtain their coordinates, and the person with the most rocks brought back to the starting place, is the winner. Run with it. Sounds like the basis of a cool game. Edit to add: Might be better if played in a large park where each player can find a place where they are not seen by other players. That would eliminate any driving and potential for accidents etc. In a park, the game can be repetedly played until you get bored, or tired of all that running. I guess the objective might be to find anyone who is a player, and who hasn't already given your their coordinates, and try to find their piece if it is still in play. Might even get tired of searching for a particular rock that has already been plundered. Perhaps with teams would introduce a different strategy. Could drop the rock, mark the coordinates, then meet back at the starting place to decide how or when to start the gathering of other's coordinates. Call it: Rock Me GpSr, and of course play the Rock Me Amadaus tune loudly too.

Yes, I have decided against hiding a particular cache in an area that I previously thought would be perfect. I am a believer that the location and hiding place, as well as the carefully thought out name is far for important to me than the actual container, nice camo job, or swag contained in the cache. I spotted a nice area on Google earth that was not saturated with caches, unlike other areas in my county, and had a nice cache container loaded and ready to go. When I got there to find the perfect spot for it--there were none that suited my imagination. I did find a few other nice places for caches that I had not yet designed, so I quickly went home to make up a few that did suit the environment. Now I always have at least 5 or 6 cache containers of various design and cammo with me, ready for the perfect hiding opportunity. There's no sense in ruining a perfect hiding opportunity with a less than perfect cache to suit the theme you have in mind.

We went with Shrinky Dinks. They now have a plastic sheet that you can run through your ink jet printer to print on a nice design, then a few minutes in the oven turns them to hard plastic. These will shrik down to the size of a quarter, and are nice to leave in caches. Sorry I don't have a pic of them.

Another good discussion. I can understand the dislike of these caches, or discomfort in attempting to find one of these, given risks of being perceived or labeled a lonley freak in the park. I too enjoy the challenges of these caches--using your own kids to distract the locals while you examine the grounds for that hidden cache. If it shouldn't be attempted while muggles are around, then that's a challenge for another day. Good opportunity to bring some nieces or nephews to the park if that tact works. Edited to note "lonely freak" as a perception. I didn't imply that the OP was neither lonely, or a freak.

As Adam, from Mythbusters, would say, "Now there's your problem!" I realize it may be difficult for a pirate, but until you learn to "just say no" to plundering, you are part of the problem. Neither you nor the kids "just have to have something". If you are not prepared to trade fairly, you should simply sign the log and tell the kids they'll just have to wait because it wouldn't be right to take something without leaving something of similar value. Valuable life lesson there. I can't disagree with that. Indeed, I have learned some valuable lessons in these few short months of geocaching, but I'll save those for another thread. Some discussion here mentions leaving "quality" swag. I have in the plans a cache that will contain lots of new marketing giveaway type swag that I was thinking might be enjoyed by some (laser pointers, maglight flashlights, etc). Reading this thread has given me a new perspective on this, and I've now come to believe that it will be a neat cache for a short time, until the "quality" swag is gone and gets replaced by typical stuff of lesser quality. That's ok with me. If others loaded it with their neat marketing giveaway stuff too, as I initially intended, then the cache concept could live longer--but in reality, that would take some planning for someone to read about the cache and purposely bring a theme item to trade. I'm coming to peace with this whole perspective now and really am appreciating the cache for the journey it takes you on. Swag is just the bonus that adds to the pirate theme my Team Pirate/Princess and I enjoy.

Good discussion. I often feel bad when I plunder a cache of its swag and don't trade fairly. I quickly get over it though, and make it up later by leaving more goodies in other caches. I've introduced 3 separate groups of friends and relatives to geocaching, and their kids really loved it. As some of you know, when a kid sees all that swag, they just have to have something, whether you trade or not. On one occassion, 5 kids each had to have something out of this nice cache we found in AZ. We plundered that one pretty good--so I felt I had to leave a couple bucks to bring it back to whole again. It probably didn't, but boy those kids were stoked. I do aim to ALWAYS carry swag with me when caching, just in case the kids really want something.