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New to GeoCaching in Okinawa, Japan


Scheid_Horde

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My 12 year old has been after me to try this for a while and seeing as we leave here in 6-7 months I figured we should go ahead and try it so we can possibly find some more interesting places before we head out. We have a Garmin 60CSX on it's way to us so I'm hoping to find a map of the area that's compatible with it. We are completely new to this (I'm not even sure I'm using the forum right) so I'm sure it will take some getting used to. Does anyone have tips for us? Any help would be appreciated!

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after you get your gpsr and it acquires satellites, you can just go to the hide and seek a geocache page, enter those coordinates and it will show you all the geocaches in your area. pick some geocaches that look interesting to you, enter the coordinates and follow the arrow. the arrow will point you stratight in the direction of course, but you get my drift. you don't NEED any other maps to go geocaching. they are helpful though and someone should be along with the link to open source maps. if you don't have any experience at all i would recommend waiting til you get your feet wet a little bit before you start downloading maps.

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Thank you! It MIGHT be in today. My husband is teasing us but it sounds like it is. We know there's a few right around our apartment area (Sunabe). I've never used a GPS before so I'm hoping it's pretty easy to catch on. My husband has used them for work when deployed so I'm sure he'll help. I'm hoping once we can get a map it will help us find some other areas on island of interest but at least now I know we can work on some in areas we're familiar with. We've only got about 6 months left on island (unless hubby's orders don't get approved for accompanied) so we'd like to explore a good bit while we can. Can't wait!!!

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you're welcome. i lived in japan for 4 years and my wife is japanese so it was a little easier for me without downloaded maps when i was visiting last year, but like i said, enter your home coordinates in gc.com and you will be on your way. i hope you have fun. post back in here and let us know how it goes.

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Only 6 to 7 months left on island? Well, there are around 460 caches on island to choose from. Ranging from very easy to pull-your-hair-out difficult.

 

Please take care when caching here in Oki. Muggles tend to be very curious here, and they are everywhere! You'll be thinking you are in a very remote place and suddenly there will be a muggle hanging out (I can recall countless stories on this). The important thing to remember is to use the upmost amount of stealth when retrieving and replacing a cache container. Put it back exactly where you retrieved it from, as this helps the cache owner when they go back to check up on their cache. Nothing is more frustrating than for an owner to go to a cache location and not be able to find their own cache because it was moved.

 

It will also be helpful to remember that when trading, either trade even or trade up. Never trade down. And with trackable items (travel bugs, geocoins) it is considered good etiquette to only trade with another trackable item.

 

I am co-hosting an event on the 5th of July near Zanpa point in Yomitan (just north of you). It is a great opportunity to meet with other cachers. If you plan to attend, then please log a Will Attend log on the cache page.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...30-657c9bdef9bb

 

Good luck and hope to see you at the event!

Edited by larzanth
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That event sounds like a lot of fun. I'll ask my hubby and see if he has anything planned for the weekend yet (the 4th is our anniversary AKA our De-Independence Day!). Our GPS came in and we're trying to learn the ropes a little. We have two micro caches right behind us in Sunabe and while we were in the right area, our powers of observation aren't the best yet. Maybe we should start with the traditional caches instead of tiny magnetic ones. But we really didn't know what we were looking for either and just how sneaky we need to get. I'm going to try to find a normal sized one for us this weekend so long as the weather cooperates!

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