The flying sardine

[+danieloliveira]

Do you have an interesting story about a hunt?

Did you DNF and 5 seconds later another cacher found the cache?

Did a cache fall on your head?

Did you fall on a cache? etc, etc...

Why not share an interesting story with us by "throwing a sardine" on this forum?

Edited August 26, 2006 by danieloliveira

[+Torgut]

One of the episodes coming first to my mind happened during my hunting of Half a Mountain. In our way back, shortly after sunset, as we entered the "main" dirt road we suddenly spotted a fox, only a few meters from us. The animal was realy freightened and start running imediately. I guess the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and took our human smell and sounds away from the poor fox.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Torgut

[+Torgut]

It seems I have a tradition: each time I travel to a foreign country I find a local geocacher in the first cache I try to find. It happened in Prague: we arrived at our hotel almost by sunset, and we just dropped our lugage before try a short expedition to a cache not far, in Vysehrad. After a first approach we spotted a guy with a GPS, walking fast towards point zero. We followed him and caught him the the location. He tried to fools us pretending the device was a mobile phone, which is quite hilarious if you really know what guy is trying to do. After a while we started a kind of conversation, hard enough as the man wouldn't speak proper english and we surely didn't know any czech. In the end we found the container with his help.

 

Then, in Ireland, we arrived at Dublin airport a couple of hours before our flight to Cork. We had time for a 3 km walk to the closes cache. Arriving there we spotted a local with a printed geocaching sheet, doing his math (it was a multicache). I started a conversation, which was great, working as an introduction to Ireland and Dublin, and we found the cache together. As we were runing out of time, this nice man, on his sixties, and, quoting, "a full time wife slave and a part-time geocacher", offered us a ride to the airport. It was an excelent start for the irish geohunting, during which we found the oldest cache in Europe, not far from Dublin.

[+danieloliveira]

It happened in Prague: we arrived at our hotel almost by sunset, and we just dropped our lugage before try a short expedition to a cache not far, in Vysehrad. After a first approach we spotted a guy with a GPS, walking fast towards point zero. We followed him and caught him the the location. He tried to fools us pretending the device was a mobile phone, which is quite hilarious if you really know what guy is trying to do.

 

 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!.......GOTCHA!

[+danieloliveira]

Since BTRodrigues has been too lazy to add to this forum, I have taken the liberty of transcribing a log he made in one of my caches:

 

LOG DATE: 26/11/2006

I'd ask the readers to keep the following sentences in their minds: "the cache location has been chosen in function of the effort visitors will have to put in to get to point zero", "visitors who love their cars can leave them higher up the mountain and enjoy a 1.2 km trek to point zero", "there are places you could fall from and break your head, arms and legs in several places" and "Your logs will colour the cache page".

 

You should also keep in mind that at this time of the year the sun sets by 5.30 PM and that we love our seven-year old cachemobile. As we were arriving from the last cache, we noticed there were a few loose bits underneath it, so we chose to spare him this adventure, so we left it 1.2Km away from the cache spot. It was about 4.30 PM and we had enough time (and sunlight) to go back and forth.

 

Well, the walk down took a little longer than expected (and we can blame the astonishing panorama and the carefully chosen hiding spot – c’mon, there were at least a dozen suitable places further close to the sea!) and the sun was setting when we got there. Sara stayed a little bit higher (30 m from the cache) as I wandered near ground zero looking for the little creature. I had 10 meter accuracy readings, so it could be hidden anywhere. So I went back up, grabbed the PDA and took a look at the hint. Then headed back, looked a little more, got back to grab the flashlight and stuck my head and hands into very unusual places. By now, it was getting darker and she was giving me “those” looks. I was thinking about logging a DNF when I decided to bug the owner begging for some extra hints. As soon as I heard his voice mumbling “what the hell are you nuts doing there at this time of the day?”, I found the cache. So this one doesn’t count as an helpdesk call. Merely a courtesy phone call. Game over? Naaaah. Just the beginning. It was 5.45 PM.

 

I got back next to Sara, opened the box, exchanged gifts, signed the logbook and got back to the hiding place, putting it back where it was very very carefully. Running back to the car (it was pitch dark and we were both using flashlights) we were talking about how cool the walk was, as it had been easier descending (obviously) and how finding the cache had a positive effect on the stamina and how we hate daylight saving time at winter. The last 200 meters to the car were celebrated with a countdown looking at the GPS distance approaching zero. And then I put my hands in the place where my car keys were supposed to be. Supposed to be. Right.

We emptied every pocket and backpack. The keychain was there but there were no keys. dadgum. A few phone calls later asking people to get our spare keys for our house (they were in the car too) and then the spare keys for the car – this would take about 1 and a half hour, Sara decided we should get back down the road trying to see if we could find the keys. The phone battery was also on its last breath and we would also had to explain non-GPS people where the hell the car was parked defining our meeting point.

 

I found the probability of finding them along the path (or worst, near ground zero) with only one flashlight (the other would soon be dead) was close to nothing, but we had nothing to lose. 1.2 km later, no results and I was happily wandering around dangerous cliffs, retracing my steps and looking everywhere. Car keys are significantly smaller than a cache and have the ability to hide well inside bushes. But why would they be there? They could be everywhere, including along the road we had just scattered. By 7.20 PM, I found them lying on the floor. Can’t exactly recall what I did around there so my keys would fall to the ground without me noticing, leaving the snap hook it was on clipped to me. I give up. I just honestly can’t explain how these things happen. The last 10 seconds of phone battery were spent calling my sister telling her to get back because we had found the car keys.

 

We enjoyed the 1.2 km trek so much we did it four times. If we didn’t love the car, it would be easier to leave it there and walk back home.

 

We’d recommend the cache anytime to anyone. We do it so much we were considering re-doing it today if we hadn’t found the keys.

 

There. We hope our log colored the cache page as it should. Just don’t ask us what we traded, because we don’t remember. But I can describe every square inch of the cache hiding place vicinity by heart.

 

Daniel, can you please change the text to: "But there are places you could loose your car keys. Or fall from and break your head, arms and legs in several places, but that’s secondary."

 

Thanks BTR and Sara...this is simply the funniest (if you're sitting on this side) log ever. As a result of this "incident", I will be upgrading the warnings on my future caches. Can Groundspeak supply an icon for the attributes?

Edited December 3, 2006 by danieloliveira

[btrodrigues]

Since BTRodrigues has been too lazy to add to this forum, I have taken the liberty of transcribing a log he made in one of my caches:

 

Next time we meet, remember me to show you the snap-hook who played keychain that day. I'm still trying to figure out how did the bastard keys escaped from it...

[+danieloliveira]

ehehehehehehehhe

[+danieloliveira]

Chateados? Digam porquê!

[+prodrive]

Tenho algumas sardinhas para mandar, mas vou aguardar pelo tempo delas

[+MAntunes]

O médico aconselhou-me a largar a carne e a comer mais peixe (colesterol e tal).

[+danieloliveira]

O médico aconselhou-me a largar a carne e a comer mais peixe (colesterol e tal).

...e a linha? também, não?

[juquinha]

Na "GnE dII Oferta de emprego:piaratas", depois de termos estado no ponto zero achámos que era noutra altitude e resolvemos rodear o monte, subir e descer falésias, usar a corda etc, etc. Umas horas depois e de regresso ao ponto zero a primeira pessoa a chegar à cache pega no contentor e grita desesperada:

-"não está cá nada, só aqui vejo esta porcaria!" e só não atira o contentor lá para baixo porque o resto da equipa desatou a gritar desalmadamente que não atirasse pois era a cache

[+prodrive]

Na "GnE dII Oferta de emprego:piaratas", depois de termos estado no ponto zero achámos que era noutra altitude e resolvemos rodear o monte, subir e descer falésias, usar a corda etc, etc. Umas horas depois e de regresso ao ponto zero a primeira pessoa a chegar à cache pega no contentor e grita desesperada:

-"não está cá nada, só aqui vejo esta porcaria!" e só não atira o contentor lá para baixo porque o resto da equipa desatou a gritar desalmadamente que não atirasse pois era a cache

Lembro-me desse log, mas creio que a história não estava tão pormenorizada

[+danieloliveira]

Na "GnE dII Oferta de emprego:piaratas", depois de termos estado no ponto zero achámos que era noutra altitude e resolvemos rodear o monte, subir e descer falésias, usar a corda etc, etc. Umas horas depois e de regresso ao ponto zero a primeira pessoa a chegar à cache pega no contentor e grita desesperada:

-"não está cá nada, só aqui vejo esta porcaria!" e só não atira o contentor lá para baixo porque o resto da equipa desatou a gritar desalmadamente que não atirasse pois era a cache

 

Ai se o Hugo e Sara sabem disso

[+golden-team]

Nos achamos que fizemos nossa cache 500!!! Sofrida... subindo em uma arvore a 7m e tivemos que voltar no dia seguinte pois nao tinhamos feito tudo corretamente!!!

log Pfahlhocker

e Note a seguir

 

saudades de voces,

Golden-Team

[+prodrive]

Ena, que grande cache!!

Parabéns ao Golden-Team pelo Found #500

[+pirata playmobil]

Parabéns aos Golden-Team pelo Found #500