Island Geocaching

[+Abndoc]

Are there any rules against placing a Geocache that would require the use of a paddle boat/water craft?  (Kayak, Canoe, Stand Up Paddle board)  If someone really wanted to, they could swim to it as well.  The only type of power boat traffic seen, would be outboards on a john boat, maybe a pontoon or catamaran.  At this point in the river, the water level does not drop low enough where wading would be possible.  The Island is not a protected nature reserve, or any other type of protected land.  The intent would be to secure the Geocache about 4 feet up, on a tree, to protect from flooding and winter ice flows. 

[RuideAlmeida]

58 minutes ago, Abndoc said:

Are there any rules against placing a Geocache that would require the use of a paddle boat/water craft?  (Kayak, Canoe, Stand Up Paddle board)  If someone really wanted to, they could swim to it as well.  The only type of power boat traffic seen, would be outboards on a john boat, maybe a pontoon or catamaran.  At this point in the river, the water level does not drop low enough where wading would be possible.  The Island is not a protected nature reserve, or any other type of protected land.  The intent would be to secure the Geocache about 4 feet up, on a tree, to protect from flooding and winter ice flows. 

It looks doable... make sure you also have a good maintenance plan.

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, Abndoc said:

Are there any rules against placing a Geocache that would require the use of a paddle boat/water craft?

 

No, water-access caches are fairly common around here as we have plenty of interesting waterways. Just use the boat required / wading required / swimming required attribute, whichever is appropriate, and, if some form of boat really is needed, make it a T5 (special equipment needed) as well.

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, Abndoc said:

Are there any rules against placing a Geocache that would require the use of a paddle boat/water craft?  (Kayak, Canoe, Stand Up Paddle board) 

If someone really wanted to, they could swim to it as well.  The only type of power boat traffic seen, would be outboards on a john boat, maybe a pontoon or catamaran.  At this point in the river, the water level does not drop low enough where wading would be possible. 

The Island is not a protected nature reserve, or any other type of protected land.  The intent would be to secure the Geocache about 4 feet up, on a tree, to protect from flooding and winter ice flows. 

 

Nope.  We've done a lot of caches on islands with kayaks and jon boats.  Fishing on the way back a plus.   

Who owns the property?  The first thing you need is permission to hide your cache there.

We know of a few islands that allow people to stop and rest, but geocaching isn't allowed (Nat'l. Park Service). 

 

[+GeoElmo6000]

We have some in my area and they're really fun.  I once organized a pre-paddle meet & greet as a way to organize a group of paddlers to find a series of island and river caches.  

 

And in the winter, sometimes people can walk to the caches, depending on how frozen the water is!

[+Ragnemalm]

I have several of these. Over a certain distance, I do not recommend swimming and then it is a T5, boat only, otherwise T4 or T4.5 and swimming attribute. If it is possible to wade, the wading attribute will be used.

 

Also, if you need to cross dangerous water (much motorized boats, dangerous streams) I would think twice. Maintentance can be tricky, of course. It takes extra time to maintain this kind of cache unless you have your own boat in the water.

[+cerberus1]

23 hours ago, Abndoc said:

Are there any rules against placing a Geocache that would require the use of a paddle boat/water craft?  (Kayak, Canoe, Stand Up Paddle board)  

 

We still have a lengthy paddle-to, and because it's a longer trip, it's lucky if it gets visited once or twice a year.

A consideration if lots of logs are your goal.  Also, once locals finally hit it, the odds of people "just passing through" dwindles considerably.

 - Though for some it may be the reason they picked the distant destination.  

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

 

We still have a lengthy paddle-to, and because it's a longer trip, it's lucky if it gets visited once or twice a year.

A consideration if lots of logs are your goal.  Also, once locals finally hit it, the odds of people "just passing through" dwindles considerably.

 - Though for some it may be the reason they picked the distant destination.  

 

Yes, I have three boat access caches that don't see much activity now that the initial novelty of a new cache has passed. The first, GC62WZJ published in 2015, has had just two finds in the last two years and they were two people out caching together in June this year. It's much the same story for GC6WPQ5, published in 2016, which had a family group of three find it in February this year and no finds at all last year. GC8V8WA, published in mid 2020, is still getting a few finds, most recently in October and August this year, but that's likely to taper off to almost nothing now that most of the locals have done it.

 

That last one, and the nearby GC8TAFN which was intended as a hike down to the water's edge from the ridgetop road, are an odd pair, as most who have found both have either hiked to GC8TAFN then waded at low tide to GC8V8WA, or paddled at high tide to GC8V8WA and gone ashore to nab GC8TAFN on the way past. So roughly half the finders on the hiking cache have gone there by boat and half the finders on the boat cache have gone there on foot. Oh well.

[+Ragnemalm]

19 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

We still have a lengthy paddle-to, and because it's a longer trip, it's lucky if it gets visited once or twice a year.

A consideration if lots of logs are your goal.  Also, once locals finally hit it, the odds of people "just passing through" dwindles considerably.

 - Though for some it may be the reason they picked the distant destination.  

That is very much the case, the ones that takes some planning and effort to reach get few visits. I even missed more than one myself in my area since they were challenging to take on. Pity when it sounded fun, but it takes the right day, usually summer, nice weather etc.