Floating TB's

[+blb9556]

I thought about a TB that you could go on a boat and toss it in the ocean. This would be yours and it would have no logs yet. After it's in the ocean you log unknown location. Who knows it could wash up on a beach to a cacher then that cacher could put in a cache! What do you think?

[+BlueDeuce]

Sounds cool. Seems like the chances of it being found are close to nil but hey, it's your money. Go for it!

 

It would be awesome to hear that it was found. Hard enough just to keep them in caches.

[+BlueDeuce]

How about a bug that you don't leave in a cache. You just drop it somewhere, giving instructions, and see what the general non-caching public does with it. That would be another floater.

 

New term! Floater - A Traveler that is found or carried by a non-cacher, or doesn't travel via caches.

 

Edit: hmmm need to work on the definition

Edited March 2, 2008 by BlueDeuce

[+MountainRacer]

A few elementary schools in my town did that a while back. They had teddy bears with little backpacks, and their job was to pass from traveler to traveler, getting signatures in their logbooks, and eventually end up back in town. Surprisingly (this was the pre-9/11 era), many of them actually got completely around the world fairly quickly as they were handed off at airports to people going further on in one direction.

[+fairyhoney]

A few elementary schools in my town did that a while back. They had teddy bears with little backpacks, and their job was to pass from traveler to traveler, getting signatures in their logbooks, and eventually end up back in town. Surprisingly (this was the pre-9/11 era), many of them actually got completely around the world fairly quickly as they were handed off at airports to people going further on in one direction.

 

That is totally cool. My mail carrier was taking some kind of traveller around for some reason a couple years ago. - It was a school project.

[+Eartha]

 

New term! Floater - A Traveler that is found or carried by a non-cacher, or doesn't travel via caches.

 

 

We already have them. They are called "Missing" and are logged into "Unknown Location"

[+BlueDeuce]

 

New term! Floater - A Traveler that is found or carried by a non-cacher, or doesn't travel via caches.

 

 

We already have them. They are called "Missing" and are logged into "Unknown Location"

 

Always the optimist.

[+DaFunkyFrogs]

Feed em to the fishies? I'm thinking that might not be so good for the sea life (those metal tags are really hard to digest).

[+mousekakat]

I thought about a TB that you could go on a boat and toss it in the ocean. This would be yours and it would have no logs yet. After it's in the ocean you log unknown location. Who knows it could wash up on a beach to a cacher then that cacher could put in a cache! What do you think?

 

NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!

 

There are already HUGE floating islands of trash covering thousands of square kilometers of ocean that are killing birds, mammals and fish

 

The remotest parts of open ocean are still far from pristine.

 

An estimated 100 million tonnes of trash is floating in the middle of the North Pacific. This vast sea of plastic garbage stretches for thousands of kilometres -- north of Hawaii to Japan -- covering an area twice that of the U.S. Everything from fishing gear to water bottles to plastic bags are found here says Bill Macdonald of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation -- a Long Beach, California-based non-profit environmental organization. Oceanographer Charles Moore, discovered this garbage patch in the 1990s and started the Foundation to do research on the problem of marine debris.

 

"It's getting worse and worse over the years," Macdonald told IPS.

 

The Foundation’s solar-powered research vessel Alguita is currently in the middle of the plastic flotilla taking samples. Cleanup is impossible, not only because of the huge volume of debris, but also because lots of marine creatures like shellfish and algae latch onto the floating islands of plastic, Macdonald says.

 

The Alguita has discovered that tendrils of debris extend up to 100 meters below the surface, according to Macdonald.

 

Not only does plastic kill marine animals that eat it or get tangled in it and drown, but it also damages and degrades their habitat. Plastic pellets are also magnets for toxic chemicals, becoming, in effect, poison pills

 

Entire story here

[+team moxiepup]

Thanks for posting that Mousekakat! As soon as I read the op's post, the same thoughts were going through my head, but your post said all I could say and more. We need to think of the other creatures that share the earth.

[+whartonia]

Couldn't you attach a cache to an existing bouy? I know that in the Florida Keys there are bouys around coral reefs for the boats to anchor to so that they don't drop anchors onto the reef. Of course you'd need the proper permission. It's not the same idea that the OP had, but still something off shore. Or do those type of caches already exist?

[+Eartha]

Couldn't you attach a cache to an existing bouy? I know that in the Florida Keys there are bouys around coral reefs for the boats to anchor to so that they don't drop anchors onto the reef. Of course you'd need the proper permission. It's not the same idea that the OP had, but still something off shore. Or do those type of caches already exist?

 

Nobody is allowed to mess with any existing buoys. They are there for navigation reasons, safety reasons and fisherman/lobster type reasons. You could be fined huge amounts for messing with buoys. And that would defeat the idea of having it float to somewhere else so someone could find it.

[+Snoogans]

I had a similar idea that I was playing with, but I may reconsider.

 

Thanks for posting that Mousekakat! As soon as I read the op's post, the same thoughts were going through my head, but your post said all I could say and more. We need to think of the other creatures that share the earth.

 

Never heard of this and I needed a visual. This map looks faked,

 

but I would really like to see MORE pictures of the ocean there and some low level arial shots.

 

Now THIS is fascinating.

[+mvigor]

Couldn't you attach a cache to an existing bouy? I know that in the Florida Keys there are bouys around coral reefs for the boats to anchor to so that they don't drop anchors onto the reef. Of course you'd need the proper permission. It's not the same idea that the OP had, but still something off shore. Or do those type of caches already exist?

 

Nobody is allowed to mess with any existing buoys. They are there for navigation reasons, safety reasons and fisherman/lobster type reasons. You could be fined huge amounts for messing with buoys. And that would defeat the idea of having it float to somewhere else so someone could find it.

 

The episode of TV's 'Dirty Jobs' that I saw most recently showed Mike helping a boat crew clean the barnacles off bouys. They completely haul the thing out of the water and on to the deck of a big boat and work on it for a few hours. If that happens randomly every year or two, you're definitely going to be finding that cache muggled sooner or later.

[+RoamingRobertsons]

NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!

 

There are already HUGE floating islands of trash covering thousands of square kilometers of ocean that are killing birds, mammals and fish

 

Entire story here

 

Seems odd to me to have this story of these horrors and not have any photo evidence. Wouldn't it be much more meaningful to see some photos, both close up and from far away for size reference. Who would see this and decide to report about it but not take any photos to get the point across?

 

The idea makes sense, but I am skeptical by nature. A picture would be worth much more than 1000 words in this case.

[+Knight2000]

I thought about a TB that you could go on a boat and toss it in the ocean. This would be yours and it would have no logs yet. After it's in the ocean you log unknown location. Who knows it could wash up on a beach to a cacher then that cacher could put in a cache! What do you think?

 

NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!

 

There are already HUGE floating islands of trash covering thousands of square kilometers of ocean that are killing birds, mammals and fish

I second this. I thought it was a bad idea before i saw this post that reminded of the floating islands. I watched a program on it once.

 

Sounds like a floating CITO opportunity.

[+Knight2000]

NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!

 

There are already HUGE floating islands of trash covering thousands of square kilometers of ocean that are killing birds, mammals and fish

 

Entire story here

 

Seems odd to me to have this story of these horrors and not have any photo evidence. Wouldn't it be much more meaningful to see some photos, both close up and from far away for size reference. Who would see this and decide to report about it but not take any photos to get the point across?

 

The idea makes sense, but I am skeptical by nature. A picture would be worth much more than 1000 words in this case.

I have seen video of it.

[+Renegade Knight]

...NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO!!!

 

There are already HUGE floating islands of trash covering thousands of square kilometers of ocean that are killing birds, mammals and fish...

 

Notice it's not huge floating islands of messages in bottles?

The idea is valid. It's the trash problem that we need to solve. If all that was ever getting into the ocean were the messages people would pick them up and think "cool" and there really would not be the issue that you are finding.

[+Eartha]

 

Sounds like a floating CITO opportunity.

 

 

I heard about these islands on the radio. They can't clean them up, because the plastic mess floating out there is hundreds of feet deep and would cover an area the size of the United States, and it would pile up very high and how would it be recycled? Who would store it? We have to start at home, and not buy stuff packaged in materials that can't be recycled. And we must recycle. But that is a topic for the CITO threads.

Personally, I think tossing a TB in the ocean on a floating keychain/bobber would be a waste of money. They don't stay floating forever, eventually they sink, and who knows how long it would be before someone picks it up? Not all messages in a bottle float up on shore either. Some are smashed to smithereens on breakwaters in storms. Your floating TB could end up inside the rocks on a breakwater. Chances are slim of it being logged.

[+Knight2000]

 

Sounds like a floating CITO opportunity.

 

 

I heard about these islands on the radio. They can't clean them up, because the plastic mess floating out there is hundreds of feet deep and would cover an area the size of the United States, and it would pile up very high and how would it be recycled? Who would store it? We have to start at home, and not buy stuff packaged in materials that can't be recycled. And we must recycle. But that is a topic for the CITO threads.

Personally, I think tossing a TB in the ocean on a floating keychain/bobber would be a waste of money. They don't stay floating forever, eventually they sink, and who knows how long it would be before someone picks it up? Not all messages in a bottle float up on shore either. Some are smashed to smithereens on breakwaters in storms. Your floating TB could end up inside the rocks on a breakwater. Chances are slim of it being logged.

Actually i was thinking that the floating TB would be the CITO opportunity, not the island.

[+blb9556]

 

Sounds like a floating CITO opportunity.

 

 

I heard about these islands on the radio. They can't clean them up, because the plastic mess floating out there is hundreds of feet deep and would cover an area the size of the United States, and it would pile up very high and how would it be recycled? Who would store it? We have to start at home, and not buy stuff packaged in materials that can't be recycled. And we must recycle. But that is a topic for the CITO threads.

Personally, I think tossing a TB in the ocean on a floating keychain/bobber would be a waste of money. They don't stay floating forever, eventually they sink, and who knows how long it would be before someone picks it up? Not all messages in a bottle float up on shore either. Some are smashed to smithereens on breakwaters in storms. Your floating TB could end up inside the rocks on a breakwater. Chances are slim of it being logged.

 

I'm not actually going to do this.

[+blb9556]

Couldn't you attach a cache to an existing bouy? I know that in the Florida Keys there are bouys around coral reefs for the boats to anchor to so that they don't drop anchors onto the reef. Of course you'd need the proper permission. It's not the same idea that the OP had, but still something off shore. Or do those type of caches already exist?

 

Could do that for a cache

[+Eartha]

Be aware it is against the law to tie anything to a navigational buoy, including your boat, and usually they mark shallow water so you risk damaging your prop if you are using a motor boat.

There are probably regulations that apply to setting your own buoy, and they may vary from state to state and country to country. Temporary buoys are sometimes placed for yacht racing, but they remove them, and lobstermen must have theirs labeled with their license number and their colors.

I'm only concerned that if done in the wrong way, it would give our sport a bad name, and we try to avoid that.

[+blb9556]

Be aware it is against the law to tie anything to a navigational buoy, including your boat, and usually they mark shallow water so you risk damaging your prop if you are using a motor boat.

There are probably regulations that apply to setting your own buoy, and they may vary from state to state and country to country. Temporary buoys are sometimes placed for yacht racing, but they remove them, and lobstermen must have theirs labeled with their license number and their colors.

I'm only concerned that if done in the wrong way, it would give our sport a bad name, and we try to avoid that.

 

Yeah lets stay on topic with TB's!!!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

A few elementary schools in my town did that a while back. They had teddy bears with little backpacks, and their job was to pass from traveler to traveler, getting signatures in their logbooks, and eventually end up back in town. Surprisingly (this was the pre-9/11 era), many of them actually got completely around the world fairly quickly as they were handed off at airports to people going further on in one direction.

 

That is totally cool. My mail carrier was taking some kind of traveller around for some reason a couple years ago. - It was a school project.

 

I wonder if that was something I just heard about yesterday. It's called a "Flat Stanley" . It's essentially a snail mail version of travel bugs initiated by elementary school students.