collecting countries

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Right, I was hoping to go to Orkney, but it seems like I cannot get a rental car for all of the summer But I have an alternative idea, and it will be my 40th country when it works out. I only hint: one of the funniest flags out there.

 

Isle of Man?

[+terratin]

Right, I was hoping to go to Orkney, but it seems like I cannot get a rental car for all of the summer But I have an alternative idea, and it will be my 40th country when it works out. I only hint: one of the funniest flags out there.

 

Isle of Man?

 

yes

Though something unexpected happened. A car rental company on Orkney dropped me an email a bit earlier, telling me they had a cancellation, and if I'd like to rent a car still. YES! Neolithic Orkney, and another World Heritage Site to visit for me.

 

The Isle of Man, and my 40th country are not running away. Unless of course their flag is somewhat prophetic

[+terratin]

Right, my 40th cache country is a fact (unless I cancel hotel and flight within 24 hours). It's not the Isle of Man, but a simiarly odd geopolitical entity on geocaching

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Right, my 40th cache country is a fact (unless I cancel hotel and flight within 24 hours). It's not the Isle of Man, but a simiarly odd geopolitical entity on geocaching

 

Are you going to make us guess again. I'l guess Jersey.

 

Of course, you will have to find a cache to add it as a new country. I've DNF'd the only cache I had time to look for in what would have been a new country.

 

 

[+terratin]

Right, my 40th cache country is a fact (unless I cancel hotel and flight within 24 hours). It's not the Isle of Man, but a simiarly odd geopolitical entity on geocaching

 

Are you going to make us guess again. I'l guess Jersey.

 

Of course, you will have to find a cache to add it as a new country. I've DNF'd the only cache I had time to look for in what would have been a new country.

 

Nah, I'm far too excited about it And you're wrong. I was thinking about the Channel Islands, but many of them are separate 'country' entities on geocaching, and which one should I chose? Or travel to all of them? Too difficult for my poor brains. No, it's going to be Svalbard. So much about sunny and warm summer vacation

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Right, my 40th cache country is a fact (unless I cancel hotel and flight within 24 hours). It's not the Isle of Man, but a simiarly odd geopolitical entity on geocaching

 

Are you going to make us guess again. I'l guess Jersey.

 

Of course, you will have to find a cache to add it as a new country. I've DNF'd the only cache I had time to look for in what would have been a new country.

 

Nah, I'm far too excited about it And you're wrong. I was thinking about the Channel Islands, but many of them are separate 'country' entities on geocaching, and which one should I chose? Or travel to all of them? Too difficult for my poor brains. No, it's going to be Svalbard. So much about sunny and warm summer vacation

 

Cool (see what I did there?). There used to be some Google Street View images that were basically snow mobile tracks. Now it looks like just a few individual photos, only a few linked to each other.

[+on4bam]

it's going to be Svalbard. So much about sunny and warm summer vacation

 

You'd be surprised.

The day before we visited (before we started caching) it was 20°C, the few days we were there it was 8-12°C with rain.

Longyearbyen seems to have changed a lot since then (2004) with a lot more inhabitants and a serious increase of tourists/visitors.

We had a choice of 1 hotel or 1 hostel and there were only 2 restaurants (one was in our hotel) and we had a limited menu choice due to the flight not bringing all the ordered supplies. I guess those times are over as there is a large supermarket now too. I'd love to go there again but I'm afraid it could be disappointing (revisiting after many years has that effect unfortunately).

[+terratin]

Ok, off to Dublin tonight for country 39. I'll be caching near Europe's First all day tomorrow and then go find a few caches in Dublin on Monday. Should be fun. Long live low-cost airfares!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Ok, off to Dublin tonight for country 39. I'll be caching near Europe's First all day tomorrow and then go find a few caches in Dublin on Monday. Should be fun. Long live low-cost airfares!

 

Enjoy. Hope you get a chance to spend some time in Dublin as well.

 

I thought I might taking a trip to Montreal in September (only about a 5 hour drive from here) but now that is unlikely to happen. Instead, I've been invited to participate in a workshop in Berlin and management has asked me to submit a proposal for presentation. I've had a few other invitations over the last couple of months but couldn't get support for travel expenses. One was in Montpellier, France and another in Tallinn, Estonia (a country I have not yet visited). Although I've found caches previously in Germany from a couple of other trips I've never been to Berlin so would add another German Bundeslander. More importantly, there are several optional itineraries I could do which could involve layover in one of the Scandinavian countries. Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki are all very viable options with some good low cost airfares from SAS, Iceland Air or Norwegian and several low cost options to get to/from Berlin from one of those cities. I've already cached in Denmark, but a quick train ride could take me to Malmo, Sweden.

[+terratin]

Ireland is on the map. Still not sure how many caches I did in two days (around 28/30 I think) but I'm still busy logging. Managed to get nine caches types in a day, up by one from previous best. And I got country 39 indeed. Plus Europe's First of course. Most interesting cache was this one here: https://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=02f8f521-4d07-4404-ba2b-4c98c32f61e9

[+Michaelcycle]

Well done! We all suffer for our art.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I got confirmation that my proposal was accepted to speak at a workshop in Berlin in September.  I spent some time going over possible itineraries yesterday have a couple of options that would add a new country.  One involves an overnight layover in Stockholm and a 8 hour layover in Iceland on the way home.  Although I've already done some caching in Iceland I'd welcome a visit back.  That would only add one country (Sweden).  Another option would have a layover in London and a six hour layover in Riga, Latvia (two new countries).  The first option is on "better" airlines and the timing is a bit better so I'll probably go with that.  I'll also be able to add 1-2 new German Bundeslander.

Meanwhile I also got another invitation to co-chair a workshop in Cuba.  The event is being held at an all-inclusive resort and there are several caches in the area.  That probably won't happen though as I doubt that I'll be able get funding for travel.

[+terratin]

Off to Svalbard next week as the Scottish summer is still too warm I've still not decided on all excursions I want to do, but most are sorted now.

[+Gill & Tony]

I've just booked our 2018 holiday.  In August we will be off to Africa on a fully escorted tour with Scenic.  

We will have a 2-night stop-over in Dubai on the way, then we start in Cape Town and work our way up to Johannesburg via several game parks.   Then Victoria Falls and Kenyan game parks,   We then fly Nairobi to Giza, spend about 10 days in Egypt followed by 10 days in Jordan. All up we will be away for 7 weeks, visiting Botswana, Egypt, Jordan. Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, UAE and Zimbabwe.  I'm hoping to cross the bridge at Victoria Falls to get the Earthcache in Zaire, but I don't know if that will be feasible.  These will all be new countries for me and if I get at least one in each country it will bring my total to 38.

[+colleda]

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

I've just booked our 2018 holiday.  In August we will be off to Africa on a fully escorted tour with Scenic.  

We will have a 2-night stop-over in Dubai on the way, then we start in Cape Town and work our way up to Johannesburg via several game parks.   Then Victoria Falls and Kenyan game parks,   We then fly Nairobi to Giza, spend about 10 days in Egypt followed by 10 days in Jordan. All up we will be away for 7 weeks, visiting Botswana, Egypt, Jordan. Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, UAE and Zimbabwe.  I'm hoping to cross the bridge at Victoria Falls to get the Earthcache in Zaire, but I don't know if that will be feasible.  These will all be new countries for me and if I get at least one in each country it will bring my total to 38.

Half your luck! Will be interesting to hear how well Scenic does it. We're off to China next week but no souvenir for that.

[+on4bam]

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

  I'm hoping to cross the bridge at Victoria Falls to get the Earthcache in Zaire, but I don't know if that will be feasible.

Zaire ceased to exist in 1997. It's back to Congo since then.

1 day in Dubai is way too short, you can easily spend a week in the UAE.

[+Gill & Tony]

7 minutes ago, colleda said:

Half your luck! Will be interesting to hear how well Scenic does it. We're off to China next week but no souvenir for that.

We have done 2 previous trips with Scenic and they are brilliant.  Not cheap, by any means, but 5 star all the way.  

[+Gill & Tony]

9 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Zaire ceased to exist in 1997. It's back to Congo since then.

1 day in Dubai is way too short, you can easily spend a week in the UAE.

According to the cache page it is in Zaire, but I bow to your superior knowledge.

I agree about Dubai.  We actually get 2 days as we arrive 06:00 on day 1 and have a tour on day 2.  Not enough, but 7 weeks away is long enough.

[+on4bam]

35 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

According to the cache page it is in Zaire, but I bow to your superior knowledge.

I agree about Dubai.  We actually get 2 days as we arrive 06:00 on day 1 and have a tour on day 2.  Not enough, but 7 weeks away is long enough.

Living in Belgium, Congo is something we have a connection with ( a big part not something to be proud of, I may add, look up King Leopold II). It used to be called "Belgian Congo", later (under Mobutu) it was Zaire but since then they went back to Democratic Republic Congo (not to be confused with the  Republic Congo across the Congo River).

We spend a week in the UAE a few years ago and rented a car to explore all emirates. Except for the great mosque we didn't visit anything in Abu Dhabi which means we'll have to go back again for a few days.   Getting a full tank of fuel for €11 was a real treat, we paid more for a liter of water than a liter of petrol/gas then.

Just see you're going to be there in August... prepare for the heat (we had 28-30°C first week of January).

Edit: Just realized:  Do you mean Zambia? Victoria Falls is Zimbabwe/Zambia border.

 

Edited August 12, 2017 by on4bam

[+Gill & Tony]

38 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Living in Belgium, Congo is something we have a connection with ( a big part not something to be proud of, I may add, look up King Leopold II). It used to be called "Belgian Congo", later (under Mobutu) it was Zaire but since then they went back to Democratic Republic Congo (not to be confused with the  Republic Congo across the Congo River).

We spend a week in the UAE a few years ago and rented a car to explore all emirates. Except for the great mosque we didn't visit anything in Abu Dhabi which means we'll have to go back again for a few days.   Getting a full tank of fuel for €11 was a real treat, we paid more for a liter of water than a liter of petrol/gas then.

Just see you're going to be there in August... prepare for the heat (we had 28-30°C first week of January).

Edit: Just realized:  Do you mean Zambia? Victoria Falls is Zimbabwe/Zambia border.

 

Yes, stupid me, I  meant Zambia.

UAE in August will be 40+.  Another reason for not spending too much time there.  Probably the only time I will welcome being in shopping malls 

[+on4bam]

5 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

UAE in August will be 40+.  Another reason for not spending too much time there.  Probably the only time I will welcome being in shopping malls 

You can go ice skating in the Dubai Mall to cool off or go skiing there. 

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

5 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

I've just booked our 2018 holiday.  In August we will be off to Africa on a fully escorted tour with Scenic.  

We will have a 2-night stop-over in Dubai on the way, then we start in Cape Town and work our way up to Johannesburg via several game parks.   Then Victoria Falls and Kenyan game parks,   We then fly Nairobi to Giza, spend about 10 days in Egypt followed by 10 days in Jordan. All up we will be away for 7 weeks, visiting Botswana, Egypt, Jordan. Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, UAE and Zimbabwe.  I'm hoping to cross the bridge at Victoria Falls to get the Earthcache in Zaire, but I don't know if that will be feasible.  These will all be new countries for me and if I get at least one in each country it will bring my total to 38.

I am assuming you meant Zambia rather than Zaire.   You'll need to get a visa to cross the boarder.   I was in Zambia for almost a week and crossed over the bridge into Zimbabwe for the day.  In the dry season there isn't much water going over the falls on the Zambia side so we went over the border.  We had to get a visa at the border. That earthcache in Zambia was placed by someone that used to participate in this thread quite a bit.  When I was there, there was only one virtual cache on the Zambia side but I never got it nor did I get to find any other caches in Zambia.  I have had several layovers in Nairobi but not long enough to get out and find a cache.  I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago with some people at an organization there that might lead to a visit for me there.  I'm also working on a project in collaboration with a university in Uganda so if I go to Kenya I'd try to combine visits to both countries.

 

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

3 hours ago, colleda said:

5 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

I've just booked our 2018 holiday.  In August we will be off to Africa on a fully escorted tour with Scenic.  

We will have a 2-night stop-over in Dubai on the way, then we start in Cape Town and work our way up to Johannesburg via several game parks.   Then Victoria Falls and Kenyan game parks,   We then fly Nairobi to Giza, spend about 10 days in Egypt followed by 10 days in Jordan. All up we will be away for 7 weeks, visiting Botswana, Egypt, Jordan. Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, UAE and Zimbabwe.  I'm hoping to cross the bridge at Victoria Falls to get the Earthcache in Zaire, but I don't know if that will be feasible.  These will all be new countries for me and if I get at least one in each country it will bring my total to 38.

Half your luck! Will be interesting to hear how well Scenic does it. We're off to China next week but no souvenir for that.

There *is* a souvenir for China.  I've got it in my profile.  

[+colleda]

11 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

There *is* a souvenir for China.  I've got it in my profile.  

Hey, that's cool. I didn't even bother checking as I just assumed that, due to the low number of caches, there wouldn't be one. Thanks NYPC

[+NYPaddleCacher]

12 hours ago, colleda said:

23 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

There *is* a souvenir for China.  I've got it in my profile.  

Hey, that's cool. I didn't even bother checking as I just assumed that, due to the low number of caches, there wouldn't be one. Thanks NYPC

According to project-gc, China has 1642 caches. Singapore only has 613 but it also has a souvenir.   China  has grown quite a bit over the last several years.  If you're going to be in Beijing, spend some time in the Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, and Olympic Forest Park.  They're beautiful places and there are a lot of caches to be found.  

[+colleda]

15 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

According to project-gc, China has 1642 caches. Singapore only has 613 but it also has a souvenir.   China  has grown quite a bit over the last several years.  If you're going to be in Beijing, spend some time in the Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, and Olympic Forest Park.  They're beautiful places and there are a lot of caches to be found.  

I downloaded 1612 availables to GSAK yesterday then loaded up our Garmins. We've been to Beijing twice, before geocaching so we'll be looking at those attractions in a new light and wont have to necessarily follow our guide to closely. First time there was during the SARS scare. The last time was about a year before the Olympics and we saw massive changes that occured in the years between, we even managed to see a little bit of blue sky the second time. By contrast we visited Russia in 1999 and again in 2011 (Trans Siberia) and nothing much seemed to have changed or been improved.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

8 hours ago, colleda said:

23 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

According to project-gc, China has 1642 caches. Singapore only has 613 but it also has a souvenir.   China  has grown quite a bit over the last several years.  If you're going to be in Beijing, spend some time in the Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, and Olympic Forest Park.  They're beautiful places and there are a lot of caches to be found.  

I downloaded 1612 availables to GSAK yesterday then loaded up our Garmins. We've been to Beijing twice, before geocaching so we'll be looking at those attractions in a new light and wont have to necessarily follow our guide to closely. First time there was during the SARS scare. The last time was about a year before the Olympics and we saw massive changes that occured in the years between, we even managed to see a little bit of blue sky the second time. By contrast we visited Russia in 1999 and again in 2011 (Trans Siberia) and nothing much seemed to have changed or been improved.

I've been there three times.  The first was a few years after the Olympics and I was able to see a few of the venues (the Birds nest is really cool) but I didn't get up to Olympic forest park.  When I was invited to go the first time I figured I'd never get back so I spent a few days after my meetings as a tourist.  Who knew I'd be invited back to another conference less than a year later.  My first visit was in November and there was plenty of blue sky.  The last two times is was *very* smoggy.   A couple of days after I got back highways were closed due to lack of visibility.  I was there for a week on my last trip (doing some consulting at a university and speaking at the China National Agriculture LIbrary) and as given a day off in the middle of the week.  I was asked if I wanted to go to the Great Wall and I said that I had been to the Badaling (most popular) section which gets a million visitors a year.  The woman that hosted my visit said she'd take me to another section.  It was a section which only has access through private property (which allows a limited number of visitors a day).  The Badaling section was like walking in a parade.  On the section we visited (Huanghuacheng Section)  we saw four other people all day.  The owner of the private access have several rooms available for rent for people hiking sections of the wall.  We also had lunch there and it was the best meal I had during three visits.

[+terratin]

Back from Svalbard. This was probably the most impressive trip ever and will be difficult to top. I found 17 caches including 3 ECs. I could have cached more but rather spent time doing nice things and eating fantastic food. Ever had smoked bear, reindeer heart, barbecued mink whale or moose burger? So much yumminess!

[+terratin]

A trip to Warsaw coming up in December. Plus a visit home, this time via Bremen, which allows me to get a new federal country in Germany

[+on4bam]

On 8/19/2017 at 6:02 PM, terratin said:

Back from Svalbard. This was probably the most impressive trip ever and will be difficult to top.

Try Greenland

 

 

[+pantadeusz]

4 hours ago, terratin said:

A trip to Warsaw coming up in December. Plus a visit home, this time via Bremen, which allows me to get a new federal country in Germany

If you need some good cache recommendations, I can certainly help.

[+terratin]

18 minutes ago, pantadeusz said:

If you need some good cache recommendations, I can certainly help.

 

18 minutes ago, pantadeusz said:

Hmm.. for Warsaw? Absolutely! I'll have about 2.5 days there and would like to combine caching with sightseeing and eating delicious food. The ECs and the Virtual are a must for me, but other than that I've not really looked at what to do.

[+pantadeusz]

2 minutes ago, terratin said:

 

Hmm.. for Warsaw? Absolutely! I'll have about 2.5 days there and would like to combine caching with sightseeing and eating delicious food. The ECs and the Virtual are a must for me, but other than that I've not really looked at what to do.

I will think about it and send you a few really good ones :D. Btw. I hope there will be more than one virtual by the time you visit

[+terratin]

1 hour ago, pantadeusz said:

I will think about it and send you a few really good ones :D. Btw. I hope there will be more than one virtual by the time you visit

I hope so too I'm only going at the end of November, beginning of December, thus there's lots of time for those new virtual owners

[+NYPaddleCacher]

23 hours ago, terratin said:

A trip to Warsaw coming up in December. Plus a visit home, this time via Bremen, which allows me to get a new federal country in Germany

What's a federal country in Germany?  Is that the same as a Bundesländer?  I've got two of the German Bundesländer souvenirs already (Hessen and Hamburg) and should be able to add two more when I visit Berlin and Hannover next month. 

[+on4bam]

11 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

What's a federal country in Germany?  Is that the same as a Bundesländer? 

Yes.

 

[+terratin]

1 hour ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

What's a federal country in Germany?  Is that the same as a Bundesländer?  I've got two of the German Bundesländer souvenirs already (Hessen and Hamburg) and should be able to add two more when I visit Berlin and Hannover next month. 

yes! Hannover is in Niedersachsen/Lower Saxony and Berlin is just Berlin. Actually, I'm from nearby Hannover.

Edited August 28, 2017 by terratin

[+hzoi]

We fly tomorrow to the Virgin Islands, both sides.  Hopefully "Potential Tropical Cyclone Ten" will allow us to depart Hampton Roads on time and unscathed, and "African Tropical Wave 93L" will veer north before it even hits the Lesser Antilles.

(knock on wood) (insh'allah) (crosses fingers) (sacrifices paralegal to the wind demons)

[+colleda]

We have now logged our last China find in Shanghai today. Only two traditionals and 3 virtuals. It would have been pretty leans pickings without the virtuals. We fly home in a few hours with our China souvenir securely tucked under our belt. Not sure what our next country will be. Perhaps somewhere in Afica.

Quote

 

 

[+terratin]

1 hour ago, colleda said:

We have now logged our last China find in Shanghai today. Only two traditionals and 3 virtuals. It would have been pretty leans pickings without the virtuals. We fly home in a few hours with our China souvenir securely tucked under our belt. Not sure what our next country will be. Perhaps somewhere in Afica.

 

Wonderful! I wish I was caching when I visited China.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

3 hours ago, colleda said:

We have now logged our last China find in Shanghai today. Only two traditionals and 3 virtuals. It would have been pretty leans pickings without the virtuals. We fly home in a few hours with our China souvenir securely tucked under our belt. Not sure what our next country will be. Perhaps somewhere in Afica.

 

When I found my first in China I think that there were only about 350 in the entire country.  I think you wrote earlier that it was up to 1600 or so now. In a country that big, it's still pretty sparse but, except for South Africa, no where close to geocaching in Africa. I've been working on a couple of projects lately that might take me to Uganda and Kenya and could add 2 more African countries to my list (I already have 4).

[+Michaelcycle]

On 8/19/2017 at 2:02 PM, terratin said:

Back from Svalbard. This was probably the most impressive trip ever and will be difficult to top. I found 17 caches including 3 ECs. I could have cached more but rather spent time doing nice things and eating fantastic food. Ever had smoked bear, reindeer heart, barbecued mink whale or moose burger? So much yumminess!

Smoked bear: if you consider cooking it on a spit over an open fire, check. Reindeer heart: that and many other parts of the reindeer, check. Moose burger: the hospital mess hall in Fairbanks used to serve moose regularly. Mink whale: funny you should mention that. I had carpaccio of mink whale while logging our 37th country recently. We spent a couple days in Helsinki, then a couple days in Lapland (actually got to bicycle a bit north of the Arctic Circle.) We then boarded a Hurtigruten ship in Kirkenes, Norway (country 37) and cruised the northern and western coast of Norway for six days. Then two days in Bergen and two days in Oslo. In addition to the new country we logged some caches north of N 70° All in all, one of our favorite trips!

[+colleda]

On 29/08/2017 at 4:49 PM, colleda said:

We have now logged our last China find in Shanghai today. Only two traditionals and 3 virtuals. It would have been pretty leans pickings without the virtuals. We fly home in a few hours with our China souvenir securely tucked under our belt. Not sure what our next country will be. Perhaps somewhere in Afica.

 

Had a temporary memory failure 2 trads and 5 virtuals.

Meant to meantion that Google and Facebook are blocked in China.  I have Gmail and was able to access it via Windows Outlook Live Mail. Facebook I couldn't get at all but the only reason we use it is to keep up to date with what is happening locally in our Geocaching group HAVOC (Hunter Area Victims of Caching).

[+terratin]

Some exciting things coming up: a trip to Warsaw (never been to Poland before) and a trip to Alderney, which is seperate 'country' from the UK. Maybe I could also hop over to Guernsey for a day, but not sure yet.

Edited September 4, 2017 by terratin

[+mmmPIZZA]

I currently have 12 countries on my list: United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Antigua & Barbuda, Denmark, plus I also have the territories of Anguilla, Saint Martin & Sint Maarten (Netherland Antilles).

Due to add Cyprus in November and hopefully, Hungary in January. 

[+terratin]

59 minutes ago, mmmPIZZA said:

I currently have 12 countries on my list: United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Antigua & Barbuda, Denmark, plus I also have the territories of Anguilla, Saint Martin & Sint Maarten (Netherland Antilles).

Due to add Cyprus in November and hopefully, Hungary in January. 

Wow, well done!

[+hzoi]

We succeeded in finding a few caches in both the British and US Virgin Islands last week, adding two flags to our list for 39 total.  We were originally scheduled to fly out on Wednesday, September 6th, but we managed to get a flight out the day earlier to avoid the hurricane.

There were not many caches on the three islands we visited; I suspect there are far fewer now.  From what I've seen, the devastation is heartbreaking; you can barely recognize most places.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

49 minutes ago, hzoi said:

We succeeded in finding a few caches in both the British and US Virgin Islands last week, adding two flags to our list for 39 total.  We were originally scheduled to fly out on Wednesday, September 6th, but we managed to get a flight out the day earlier to avoid the hurricane.

There were not many caches on the three islands we visited; I suspect there are far fewer now.  From what I've seen, the devastation is heartbreaking; you can barely recognize most places.

I came across a FB post shortly after you posted this that described what it's currently like in the British and US Virgin Islands, primarily in St. Johns and the pictures and stories are pretty sobering.  Apparently 80% of the buildings in St. Johns have suffered extensive damage.   Barbuda, St. Martin, St. Barts, and Anguilla may be even worse.  "A St. Martin official told The New York Times on Wednesday night that '95 percent of the island is destroyed.'"  I have been corresponding with a few people at a university in Cuba (UCLV).  I saw some photos earlier today and it looks like there are a lot of trees down but not much damage to buildings.  They're inland a ways though.  The north coast fared much worse.

 

[+Michaelcycle]

We went to Grenada for our anniversary and logged our 38th country cached (that's almost, but not quite, the number of years we have been married.) 

[+FunnyNose]

It's been another average year for me with new countries. I finally found a cache in New Zealand in January of this year. Nothing else till September and I got Romania and Bulgaria under my belt. Took s short trip to Costa Rica in October and my last one will be an earthcache in Tanzania in a couple weeks. Which will be my 68th country.