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Leaving With A Cache


bennet

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This is not really that unusual, I don't think, but it happened to me. I'm curious if there is a way to avoid this, or it is just something that is going to happen from time to time and just part of the sport.

 

Several days ago, my girlfriend and I went to a brand new cache site and searched, going for a FTF. When we got there, we noticed a family packing into a van and leaving, just as we were getting out of our car. The cache site is a small playground that is infrequently visited.

 

We searched for the micro, but did not find it. The area really had limited hiding places. We saw evidence of another cacher searching there earlier. We guessed that the people in the van were cachers.

 

A few feet from the spot our GPSr was pointing to is a small pedestal table (about 2 feet by 2 feet) and a couple of small benches. I searched the table (and the benches) all over probably four times, plus of course, the surrounding area. My girlfriend also searched the table. After a while of searchign the area with no luck, we gave up.

 

Later that night, we entered our "Did not find" log, and noticed that another cacher had logged it as a find. That cacher is a family with several young kids. The folks in the van, it looked like they were definitely the cachers.

 

Over the next few days, other cachers logged their finds of this cache. Appeared that they were having a relatively easy time of it.

 

Well, last night in the dark, we finally made it back out there. I started looking in nearby trees. My girlfriend asked me if I was going to search the table and benches, and I said no, I was already sure it was not there because I had searched them so thoroughly before.

 

After a while, she looked under the table anyway and there it was. She immediately found it. It was easily findable with a quick check under the table.

 

It is practically impossible that I missed it the first time, or the first four times, that I searched that table.

 

So bottom line, I strongly believe that the first cachers took the cache with them when they left, and then returned it later.

 

Both me and the other cachers (the ones that I think took the cache) are relatively new to geocaching. When I find a cache, I would never leave with the cache. I might take it to my truck, but I wouldn't leave with it. I would sign the log and then return the cache, and if there were suspected muggles around, I would hang out and wait. And if it became apparent that they were cachers, I would make it known to them that I was a cacher too, and that the cache that they are interested in was in the process of being signed, and that they might want to come back in a few minutes.

 

Is there anything in the geocaching.com guidelines that tells people of this etiquette?

Edited by bennet
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If they thought you were muggles and didn't want to risk the cache being found by them they would have done the right thing by taking the cache and bringing it back later.

 

It's hard to say what they thought without asking them.

 

And as Mopar points out you can overlook an easy one for reasons that you don't want to admit.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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This is exactly why I despise micros.  Micro people, STOP IT!  :unsure:

That is exactly why I place devious micros! I like reading DNF logs where the cacher is so sure my cache is missing and I go find it right where it is supposed to be the next day B)

Right on, my little blue friend!! :huh:

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This is exactly why I despise micros.  Micro people, STOP IT!  :huh:

That is exactly why I place devious micros! I like reading DNF logs where the cacher is so sure my cache is missing and I go find it right where it is supposed to be the next day :unsure:

Okay, I'll concede that I overlooked it. B)

But that one was not a devious micro, or difficult whatsoever. It was easy, super-easy.

But alright, alright... it was there, it was there. B)

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The day before yesterday I was out caching. Had printed 7 pages within a specific area. I have to plan this way now, not many left close to me. So found the first one and went on to the second. I am following the GPSr around a cemetery and there just isn't a good hiding spot in sight. I consult the cache page and its a micro. ARRRRGGGGGG! I missed that! Left without looking any further. I hate micros. Micro people, Stop it! :unsure:

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;) I like doing unusual containers, but when my suitcase sized Ammo box was being found by a cacher, some homeless people decided to take up residence atr the site. The cacher decided after waiting over an hour for them to move on to just take the cache and return it later. Dropped me a note. Three other cachers notified me that day (a Saturday) that the cache was a DNF. The one who picked it up brought it back four days later. I had dropped a temporary replacement in the meantime. So I came back and found TWO caches in the spot, the OLD one and the replacement.

 

The homeless guy was still there. Then there was the Firemen, they decided that the Around the Block Cache was too neat to leave in place, I hear they were looking for a tire chock, and found a nice concrete block to use, no more cache.

The folks at dennys tell me they backed off real quick and called the Bomb Squad. so either the Police have it, or the Firemen have it.

 

Jeff block.jpg

Edited by Bo Peep and the Sheep
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:unsure: I like doing unusual containers, but when my suitcase sized Ammo box was being found by a cacher, some homeless people decided to take up residence atr the site. The cacher decided after waiting over an hour for them to move on to just take the cache and return it later. Dropped me a note. Three other cachers notified me that day (a Saturday) that the cache was a DNF. The one who picked it up brought it back four days later. I had dropped a temporary replacement in the meantime. So I came back and found TWO caches in the spot, the OLD one and the replacement.

 

The homeless guy was still there. Then there was the Firemen, they decided that the Around the Block Cache was too neat to leave in place, I hear they were looking for a tire chock, and found a nice concrete block to use, no more cache.

The folks at dennys tell me they backed off real quick and called the Bomb Squad. so either the Police have it, or the Firemen have it.

 

Jeff block.jpg

That one looks oddly familiar :lol:

 

I can see where someone would get the wrong idea, though

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block2.jpg

 

This is the replacement. (in a different place) I am getting better at this one, this one took only a few minutes to make, the first one took a day. This time I used a larger block, and canned foam instead of concrete to set the container within the block.

 

Supplies:

 

8" square Cinder Block $1.66

6" 4inch diameter ABS Sewer pipe- a few cents.

4' "Knock-out" "jim" cap, $.59

Can of Spray Foam crack filler- $3.99

4" Oatey Pressure test plug - $5.69

 

Total cost about $12.00

 

This container is TOTALLY air-tight and can be submerged for a long period. :unsure:

Edited by Bo Peep and the Sheep
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just-dirt.jpg

 

Yes it does, in this case I took the foam (about 4 cans of it...) and sprayed it on a wire mesh frame, then when it hardened, I coated it with self levelling floor float cement, then took soil from the hide location and while the cement was still wet coated the top.

 

The result? a piece of "dirt" that can hide a cache.

Edited by Bo Peep and the Sheep
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The result? a piece of "dirt" that can hide a cache.

 

Great execution--what about cachers inadvertantly stepping on it? Are you planning to simply place it where it's unlikely?

 

Perhaps your floor leveler will protect it, cachers here found expanding foam didn't hold up to the elements...

 

Enjoy,

 

Randy

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This is exactly why I despise micros.  Micro people, STOP IT!  :P

That is exactly why I place devious micros! I like reading DNF logs where the cacher is so sure my cache is missing and I go find it right where it is supposed to be the next day :P

Right on, my little blue friend!! :P

We rewarded one local cacher with a special event hide for his 1000th find. Since he introduced us to the concept of looking up for bison tubes we created an Xmas Tree display of them as one of the stages. The coords to the next stage were hidden in one of them. He walked around under the tree for about 8 minutes looking down while we all collapsed in fits of giggles. Fianlly we couldnt stand it any longer and gave it up.

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Maybe they did take it and realized their mistake, returned it later.

Two of my caches went missing within a week of each other. I have a good idea of what happened to one of the them but the other didn't make any sense. C'est la vie. I replaced them both since folks liked them.

Then six months later on a maintenence visit I see an apology in the log. Something along the lines of "Sorry I took the previous cache. Now that I know how the game is played I'll return it." I got a call from the facility the next day saying that somebody turned in the cache. Turns out the fellow thought he was supposed to take the cache. It took him a little while after realizing his mistake to get up the nerve to return it.

 

G.

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Yesterday I looked for a micro. Felt around where I thought it should be.. nothing. Then looked all over the area only to find it lying on the ground right where I had gone the first time. I think I dislodged it, and with my cold fingers never realized it was there. Had I not gone back, it would have gone down as a DNF.

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VERY glad I had browsed the forums before our last cache weekend. We ended up taking an entire cache with us yesterday - it was a large box, and we were spotted by some late-teen muggles who were watching our every move. We discussed possibilities and ended up hauling the whole chalupa to a nearby friend's house. Friend, being a good friend, e-mailed the cache owners who will replace cache later this week and have placed the cache temporarily out of service. It was agony trying to decide what to do, but having read this thread, we were able to go with our desire to not be the last cache team to find a cache (happened once... no fun at all to know it went missing right after that...).

 

So, thanks for guiding our decision! Lizards have to pair up to use brain cells, and we were tired from the day's drive anyway. Nice to have precedent.

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Okay, I'll concede that I overlooked it. :rolleyes:

But that one was not a devious micro, or difficult whatsoever. It was easy, super-easy.

But alright, alright... it was there, it was there. B)

WHat? Concede that you overlooked it? How can you be so sure you really overlooked it? Are you sure it was there? Couldn't it just have gone fishing for a bit?

 

Seriously now - I have more than once removed a cache into a nearb cafe, or just into my car, either in order to avoid the contents from getting wet, or in order to prevent the cache from being compromised. Don't fret about it. If you want to be sure, ask the family who logged the find if they took it, and enjoy your easy find during your 2nd visit!

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I've taken a cache or parts of it by accident and intentionally several times. Aforementioned muggles being the primary concern when doing it intentionally. Once, on vacation in SC, I took the camera out of a cache and put it in my pocket while we were signing the log, etc. . 15 miles down the road, I reach into my pocket to get something and whoops! 'Umm, Dad, we need to go back.' :D .

 

Once, I took the cache back to the truck to sign the log, and lost the lid. Since that was all that was holding it in place (35mm fim can), I had to take the entire thing home while I painted a lid to match the environs... Fortunately, it wasn't far.

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One thought that comes to mind is that the previous finders might have misplaced the cache when they returned it. It could have then been put in it's proper place by the owner of the next finder.

 

Either way, I wouldn't sweat it. That's part of the purpose of Watch lists, to see what's going on with the ones you don't find.

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I was thinking about this same thing over the weekend. I've started taking found caches back to my car for logging. At the present, these are mostly urban caches hidden in parks, on river banks and the like so the distance from cache location is usually 50 - 100 yards. I thought that making a marker to hide in the cache location while I have the cache might be useful. Something about the size of a hockey puck made of casting plastic with a plastic disk embedded in it. The disk would say something like "HI! You've found the location of a geocache. I have it for logging but will be returning it in about 30 minutes." The marker would serve two purposes. One being the topic here, folks that are looking for the cache while it has been relocated. The other would be as a place-holder so I could return the cache to the exact location where found. Wouldn't work for micros but for your run of the mill ammo and rubbermaid containers it could save so confusion.

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I had someone leave with a cache - It only happened about four weeks ago - I had spent about a month, working on a multi-puzzle-cache - each location had to be visited in order to get the "parts" neccesary to put together the device that would allow the finder to actually reach the final cache. I worked out puzzles that had to be solved to find each location and had placed all of the pieces - all I had to do was post the cache and I would have been done. The next day I took my son for a walk past the location and the cache was gone! I couldn't believe it - I had a brand new cache, camo'd to blend in with a brick wall, about five feet behind an eight foot tall chain-link fence and it was gone! It was an urban cache, near some houses, so I figure, even though I was pretty quick placing the cache, I must have been seen and whomever saw me, stole it and never replaced it. How's that for dissapointing? :rolleyes:

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I thought that making a marker to hide in the cache location while I have the cache might be useful. Something about the size of a hockey puck made of casting plastic with a plastic disk embedded in it. The disk would say something like "HI! You've found the location of a geocache. I have it for logging but will be returning it in about 30 minutes." The marker would serve two purposes. One being the topic here, folks that are looking for the cache while it has been relocated. The other would be as a place-holder so I could return the cache to the exact location where found.

 

I recently did cache maintenance and spray painted the white tupperware lid black. White was bad idea in a dark wooded area. Anyway I put a note in an altoids tin placed it in the hiding spot to say what I was doing, and that I was in the east parking lot. I wouldn't want someone to drive 50+ miles and come up empty.

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I once placed a cache IN a cache. I cut a slit in the seam of a tennis ball, stuffed in a bit of foam and then some foreign coins and an American flag pin. The posting challenged cachers to find it but the first 5 finders couldn't figure it out and the 6th took the ball.

 

The container was a tennis ball can which is my favorite, cheap, clear and easy to hide. But what do you do with all those tennis balls?

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