Underwater Caches?

[+Beta Test]

I've been thinking about making a cache that is completly underwater all year round. Mabey a small boat trip, or just wading to the cache. Or the cache could have a floatig bouy, or be on a water channel marker. Any thoughts?

[+GoingBald]

This cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...9e-2e19e4afb682

 

uses a buoy I think as the actual cache. Now, if you are in the Florida Keys you have to be careful not to touch coral. If I was doing an underwater cache, I would use for reference a close by above water object. Using the Keys as an example, I would choose a mooring ball for the cache reference, then use a compass bearing from the mooring ball anchor. Heck, you might even be able to use whatever the mooring ball is anchored with as the cache hiding spot. You just wouldn't want to place it in live coral. My friend says there are all sorts of man made objects laying about on the bottom down that way.

 

In a quarry that has been converted to scuba diving spot you have a lot of area to place a cache. One that I dived in in Pennsylvania had many underwater platforms that could have hidden a small cache.

 

A water channel marker may be off limits. You'd have to read up on the regulations for that. I know that you are not allowed to moor to them. Another idea is to place one that is submerged at high-tide. If you have tides that is, and don't live next to a lake. In that case, you could add a clue that sends them to a tide chart for that area for a particular day. I have seen one like that but I forget the cache name.

 

I have no ideas on water proofing. A totally underwater cache should use items that won't be affected by total submersion. You could toss a few dive slates in it, then retrieve them every few logged visits maybe. Hope this helped some.

[+Lazyboy & Mitey Mite]

King Kahekili is my favorite find ever. He didn't worry about getting the contents wet, he put an underwater writing slate in the cache and everything in there is waterproof.

[+bons]

"a Custom Massage toy"

 

 

I'm obviously caching in the wrong places.

[+GoingBald]

Hee hee, read that log too.... and missed it!! Thanks for pointin' that out!!

[+Beta Test]

thanks for some great ideas, and all the help.

now i hope i get some more

[+Green Achers]

Two paths... Water tight container and/or Water proof log. Both are available.

 

The part I'd like to figure out is how to hide it from Muggles while allowing clever cachers to find it. I can do one or the other of these but not both - darn it!

[+Wreck Diver]

I've been contemplating an underwater cache where my wife and I have about 30 diving certifications between us and spend a fair amount of time submerged, recreationally and occupationally.

 

I am of the present mindset that a cache container underwater will be clear, buoyant, and permanently affixed to a submerged mooring in reasonable recreational SCUBA or novice freediving limits. The container will include a laminated sheet visible from the outside, explaining the cache container, with secondary coordinates to make it a multi-cache. I have a freshwater location already in mind, with a 30 foot cabin cruiser sitting upright at 35 feet, and a SAAB 9000 sitting upright at 32 feet. Might as well make it a "wreck" dive if they're geocaching beneath the surface!

 

Some of the underwater caches I have seen listed are well beyond Open Water Diver limits, and others suggest removal of the cache container from the underwater mooring for logging and swapping of items on shore. There's a number of issues here, as you can imagine fair-weather snorkelers challenging narcosis and searching a wreck at 100 feet for slate with secondary latitude and longitude scribbled on it. Another concern is the inherent exclusion of the non-diving cachers that have no interest in obtaining certification that would allow them beyond their terrestrial moorings. It's also tough to get a GPS fix and descend on an exact coordinate with any depth beyond 30 feet (as GPS does not work beneath the surface.) And, as a underwater photographer, I can pretty much profess from experience that it's about impossible to leave the water briefly, open a watertight container, re-seal and submerge without introducing water into the container. When you're photographing cold water wrecks deeper than 100 feet and the condensation fogs over the camera housing and the camera is suddenly useless at depth, it makes for a frustrating decompression.

 

I'll eventually submit an underwater geocache that will help introduce geocachers to diving and divers to geocaching, but until then, I'm pretty confident that the cache container will be clear, permanently sealed, and permanently affixed to a submerged mooring with two or three feet of line that will keep the cache container free floating and away from bottom sediment.

[+Lazyboy & Mitey Mite]

Wreck Diver just where is this cache gonna be? huh huh huh

[+Wreck Diver]

Wreck Diver just where is this cache gonna be? huh huh huh

I'm leaning towards Hathaway Pond in Hyannis (Cape Cod) Massachusetts. It's a relatively small but deep kettle pond with good visibilty, abundant aquatic life, and underwater platforms for instructional purposes.

 

I think that short of Gloucester, it's one of the more popular Massachusetts locales for open water diving classes.

 

The cabin cruiser and SAAB are well away from the Open Water training areas, so that should help reduce accidental finds. I'll also likely adopt a system similar to the Lake Champlain Historical Preserve's means of marking the protected shipwrecks. I'd like the cache container near the wreck without affixing it on or immedately near the wreck itself.

 

41 degrees 40.990 N

70 degrees 18.685 W

[Trail Prowlers]

There is this cache up in Western Maine that is underwater. We haven't tried it yet - despite it's shallow depth, it isn't logged all that often (once in the past 15 months?), so a cache that requires SCUBA gear may see even fewer visitors...

[+WGA]

We have a cache here in Wisconsin that's be submerged for a few years now. It's called Under Where?

[+maleki]

I've done - Under Where - mentioned above. A great cache.

 

Here's another.

 

A Sailors Grave at Tony's Grove

 

Haven't logged this one yet. Was very close by last summer and it was on the list but we passed thru the area near sunset.

 

It's even in the Cache National Forest I think...

Edited February 6, 2004 by maleki

[+Spoo]

Check out the trials and tribulations of this cache:

 

Super Duper Underwater Hydro Cache 2.0

 

and just be aware of some of the problems.

I also stumbled across a cache on the coast that is only accessible at low tide. I thought it was kind of interesting.