Unfinished Business

[davester]

Having found myself at a loose end this afternoon, I decided to go and bag four caches nearby caches that I'd logged as a DNF the first time round. Normally, I wouldn't make a special trip to do this but thought it wouldn't harm as they were close together.

 

Now three of these had me totally and utterly stumped 1st time and I gave up. The 4th was missed because it was too dark.

 

Anyway, my point. Each of the three previous ones were all an utter doddle. The cache was in my hands each time within 5 minutes.

 

Anyone else find this most annoying thing happening?

[Ben Pid]

Quite Often....

 

We go caching at night and realise its impossible.....only to go back in daylight and find it instantly.

[+Pharisee]

Anyone else find this most annoying thing happening?

Oh yes... Sizewell Belts Walk come particularly to mind

[+Snosrap]

Weren't the 'hints' any use for the DNFs?

 

I have tried three caches over the last week and all three were DNFs.

 

One was flooded and I've been told by the setter that it is currently 15 feet into the river (pun intended) and I'll return in better weather. The other two were extremely frustrating because the GPS reception was not fantastic and the hints totally useless. On each occasion I was with my 5 year-old son and so splitting up to search was not an option.

 

Both were rated as difficulty 2 or less so I will not go back to either.

 

If I have to 'phone a friend' to find it I'm stumped (not being or wishing to be part of the enlightened few).

 

It's been a really frustrating time!

[+Alibags]

How very frustrating for you Snosrap. I always go back to DNFs but generally leave it until other people have logged them. In each case when I have found my previously unfound DNF, it has been very easy. One I looked for for 40 minutes or more and eventually had to give up and later I went back and put my hand right on it straight away. I am not sure why this happens.

 

Regarding cache difficulty ratings, I always use the online cache rating system when setting caches, although sometimes I knock off half a star because I think that that does rate them a bit hard. I suppose it's only easy if you manage to find it.

 

Getting the tone of hints right is very tricky. I have had complaints that mine were too cryptic and then complaints that they were too specific and BOTH ON THE SAME CACHE! You cannot please everybody. I try to make the hint just that, a further hint, but not a specific 'its here dummy' statement. I am sure that for your DNFs the cache hiders would be willing to email you a further hint if you ask. I would always do so. I know it's not much fun when you have a disappointed five year old in tow at the cache site. Perhaps an explanatory email to the cache hider before you set off for your days caching would help. I would personally always respond to requests of this type.

 

I have no idea where you are in the county, but there are several caches near me (SW Herts) which are specifically child friendly. I would suggest that reading the logs may yield some further clues as to how hard or easy previous finders found the cache and also if they had kids with them.

[smyles]

Oh yes... Sizewell Belts Walk come particularly to mind 

You must have been having a good day that day Pharisee as you also found another DNF just down the coast at the now archived Iken Icon cache!

[+The Forester]

Other than delving into one's own memory or ploughing through the entire list of caches within 50 miles, is there any way of looking up one's own DnFs?

 

I'd like to go back and have a crack at a few, but I can only remember about three of them (there are certainly more like a dozen!).

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+rutson]

Try this: http://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=1&=3

Edited January 4, 2005 by rutson

[+The Forester]

Many thanks, Rutson.

 

My Geocaching Logs (Filtered by Log Type)

 

I've been pleasantly surprised to discover how few DnFs I've actually got.

 

Just six: of which three were caused by being an early discoverer of duff co-ords and were all subsquently logged as finds wheen the appropriate corrections were made. One wasn't a DnF at all, but I didn't file a note to say that I had abandoned the multi due to nightfall because I wanted to upload a photograph of the seismograph at one of the intermediates because it had just recorded an earth tremor. One is a true DnF which I'd forgotten about and shall return on the next decent day. The sixth was a fiendishly hidden one inside a dry stone wall which I had to dismantle in a blizzard which kept filling in the spaces between the rocks with wind-blown snow, so I returned a week or so later in better weather.

 

So, only one true DnF to conquer. It's now on my DO list. Thanks for the help.

 

Additionally, I've got one outstanding virtual to claim, but the owner hasn't yet verified that I made the find correctly, so I can't log it as a find just yet.

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+Pharisee]

Just out of interest... to me, not you lot

I've logged 34 DNFs... 12 of these I've been back to and found at the second (or third... Touchet Terminator) attempt. 15 were definitely missing and were subsequently archived or replaced. The remaining 7 were down to me being a dipstick and will be revisited at some time in the future, I hope.

[+John Stead]

In each case when I have found my previously unfound DNF, it has been very easy. One I looked for for 40 minutes or more and eventually had to give up and later I went back and put my hand right on it straight away. I am not sure why this happens.

Maybe, if someone had found it between your DNF and your find, they had not hidden it so carefully. I am finding an increasing tendancy for caches to be too visible, sometimes completely out of their supposed hiding places and in most cases believe it to be the result of carelessness as is the making of leaks in boxes by not replacing the lids properly or trapping material in the seals.

[+McDeHack]

I went back to my DNF again after 3 attempts in daylight. It was a Micro and placed at a spot in the City of London. Yesterday I went again and from my motor I could see it. I am so sure that it was not where it was as I had searched there before. 'Poltigest cachers'?

[markandlynn]

We have found our caches out in the open and had to rehide them.

As for finding caches second time arround really easily, it's like when you lose your keys and then find them where you first looked it is a known form of mild self hypnosis Derren Brown uses this type of technique on people.

We found one of our DNF's this year the other 3 DNF's are not likey to be redone as 2 are in ireland and one is way out west. The one we found second time arround was really hard on both occasions but others have found it with ease (Fraise du Bois Dolgoch quarry) but we have also found some caches really easily where we know others have suffered. (alchemy quest anyone!)

[+Alibags]

I am finding an increasing tendancy for caches to be too visible, sometimes completely out of their supposed hiding places and in most cases believe it to be the result of carelessness as is the making of leaks in boxes by not replacing the lids properly or trapping material in the seals.

Oh, just don't get me started on that . I have found some very lame ones lately and I know that the original hider would have been more creative than that, and they have got that way by careless finders. One of mine that I went back to after a week had been completely changed around and I had to re-set it. I do try to leave caches the same, or slightly better, than I found them.

 

I have logged a few DNFs and have gone back and done them all again later. One of SP's chess series took me three goes, and Touchet Terminator took me 2, a big clue and take a friend along. The only DNF I have not returned to was definately muggled, was subsequently archived and was set by somebody who set half a dozen caches and then gave up geocaching, leaving them unadopted and unmaintained.

 

I had a DNF yesterday but I am positive that the cache is missing. Will return when Hornet has gone up there to replace it.

 

I suppose if I had a DNF when I was a long way from home, I would just have to live with the fact, but mine have all been local so far, so I have been able to return to them quickly.

Edited January 5, 2005 by Alibags

[+The Hornet]

I had a DNF yesterday but I am positive that the cache is missing. Will return when Hornet has gone up there to replace it.

You can now return Alibags as I have replaced the cache which had most definitely gone. I've also done some maintenance/archiving on others around the area. Thanks for the info and the TLC you rendered to another of my caches which has also now been replaced.

[+CuplaKiwis]

Getting the tone of hints right is very tricky. I have had complaints that mine were too cryptic and then complaints that they were too specific and BOTH ON THE SAME CACHE! You cannot please everybody. I try to make the hint just that, a further hint, but not a specific 'its here dummy' statement.

I've found a really good idea to get around this is to put in a three part hint,

 

eg

[Hint 1] Purpx gur cubgbf.

[Hint 2] Ybbx hc!

[Hint 3] Pnpur vf va n obyr va gur ynetr gerr, nobhg 2.5 zrgerf bss gur tebhaq.

 

- with each hint giving the searcher a bit more info - so then they can chose as little or as much as help as they require.

[+Snosrap]

I've found a really good idea to get around this is to put in a three part hint,

 

eg

[Hint 1] Purpx gur cubgbf.

[Hint 2] Ybbx hc!

[Hint 3] Pnpur vf va n obyr va gur ynetr gerr, nobhg 2.5 zrgerf bss gur tebhaq.

 

- with each hint giving the searcher a bit more info - so then they can chose as little or as much as help as they require.

That's a fantastic idea except that if you use a machine to decrypt (I use CacheNav on the Palm) or carry a copy of the decrypted web page you get all three done at once.

 

I just don't have the willpower not to read all three!

 

On a wider note I think I'm missing something here.. Do people generally enjoy the hunt once on site?

 

Personally that is the least enjoyable part of the sport. I love the planning, having an excuse to visit new and unusual places, getting the family out into the fresh air and the feeling of knowing something that the general population do not. But the actual kicking round in the undergrowth and dog poo when my GPSr is showing 80 foot accuracy with a useless hint and a pair of impatient 5 year-olds in tow is just dadgum annoying!

 

Must be me. Since turning 40 I've suddenly turned into a grumpy old git!!

[+sTeamTraen]

On a wider note I think I'm missing something here.. Do people generally enjoy the hunt once on site?

 

Personally that is the least enjoyable part of the sport. I love the planning, having an excuse to visit new and unusual places, getting the family out into the fresh air and the feeling of knowing something that the general population do not. But the actual kicking round in the undergrowth and dog poo when my GPSr is showing 80 foot accuracy with a useless hint and a pair of impatient 5 year-olds in tow is just dadgum annoying!

 

Must be me. Since turning 40 I've suddenly turned into a grumpy old git!!

Hooray, Snosrap ! Exactly my thoughts. I've done the planning, driven the car, solved the clues, got to within three metres. Now I'd like to see the box please. And I'm 44... grumpy old man indeed (incidentally, you must read the book of the TV series by Stuart Prebble, you will howl with laughter).

 

sTeamTraen is a team of one to four (or more) people, and when it's just me, for some strange reason it takes a lot more than five times longer than when we're in a family. My son is a great hunter, he really "thinks different". I tend to turn over the three biggest pile of sticks and start muttering "been muggled".

 

One thing that I find does help, but it may be specific to my Garmin Geko 201: when I walk up to the site, the first place which the GPSr calls "ground zero", and which always looks just like the spoiler photo, doesn't often contain the cache. Walking around with it doesn't help much either. What I've taken to doing (when I remember) is to put the GPSr down on "ground zero" while I search. After about 15 minutes, if I haven't found the cache, I often find that the GPSr is now pointing, say, 24 metres away, and often right at the cache! My theory (probably tosh) is that it uses a lot of moving average calculations over a period of 5-10 minutes, so you need to let all the previous stuff clear out of its memory.

 

Back to the DNFs: I use my DNF list as a list of places to return to. When I do go back and get it, I turn the DNF into a note.

[+Snosrap]

And I'm 44... grumpy old man indeed (incidentally, you must read the book of the TV series by Stuart Prebble, you will howl with laughter).

 

For some strange reason Mrs S bought me this for Christmas.

[+McDeHack]

Ha Ha 'Butterboys' When you get to my age 67 this month, positivly 'A grumpy old git'

 

No one forces you to go caching so enjoy whilst you can. It's great. Out in the fresh air, freeze your 'do dars' off, getting muddy, scrached by brambles, stung by nettles, Soaked by sudden downpours, Frustrated by DNFs.

Oh what a great hobby.

 

"What time is my next appointment with the Shrink"

[+sTeamTraen]

And I'm 44... grumpy old man indeed (incidentally, you must read the book of the TV series by Stuart Prebble, you will howl with laughter).

 

For some strange reason Mrs S bought me this for Christmas.

The bits I loved were where he confessed to a number of things which I'd noticed myself, and which weren't in the TV series; I thought I was the only one:

 

- Waking up in the night with either a brilliant idea, or a "huge problem", then in the morning you discover it was rubbish (either way)

- Women in supermarkets who look amazed when they're asked to pay and get in a fluster trying to find their cash or card, as if they thought it would be free

- Going to "parties" and having to talk to awful people about their boring jobs, instead of getting drunk and listening to the Rolling Stones

 

These are all near the top of my list of things to be grumpy about...

Edited January 5, 2005 by sTeamTraen