Newbies in SW Florida

[Guest rebbil]

My wife and I are going to look for our first caches soon and then think about planting one of our own. Any advice for newbies?

 

 

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~~rebbil~~

[Guest Sluggo]

Yes,

Go out there and spend money, wear yourselves out searching for trinkets and toys, get chiggers, ticks, poison oak, have a few flat tires, walk past a cache 6 times while carefully consulting your GPSR while wifey finds it by herself. Tell everyone about your new hobby, just to have them look at you with a blank stare and say "How much fun could that be?". Spend countless hours on geocaching.com to find the caches in your area and countless more hours arguing on the discussion forums about whether it's a hobby, pastime, activity, sport, game or sign of insanity. Seriously, it's a new game and it is evolving. Some are more experienced that others, but there are no experts. (i.e. All my experience is in the desert of eastern Washington, I can't give you much advice about SW Fla.) But you will find this community is friendly, warm and helpful and above all a bunch of GOOD PEOPLE. So, WELCOME and let us know how it goes.

[Guest faithwalker]

Hi newbies, DaMama and I have been into this for a little while and have had great fun. It's gotten us out TOGETHER. We are just north of St. Pete. I can suggest bring lots of water and plenty of bug spray. Plan your trips to get in and out before our regular afternoon showers. We have been out on lots of hunts and seen a few critters, only two ticks and they were wood ticks. Watch for snakes and spiders, lots of spiders. Get a hiking stick to prod the ground around the caches and use it to clear the webs out of your way. Many times I have worn web on my face. Watch out for the Sun, bring sun screen and your new Geocaching hats. We wear shorts and shortsleves but that is our choice, if we go off trail we wear sneakers or hiking shoes. A rain poncho is a nice item to have just in case. Seat covers or towels for your car(nothin worse than your seats smelling like a locker room after gym class, cause you will be soaked. Ants, oh yeah I was on a hunt in Tallahassee a couple of weeks ago and was paying attention to the GPSR and not the ground and stopped, only to feel a burning and stinging on my leg, FIRE ANTS. They have no mercy, at least 20 bites in less than 5 seconds. These are only a small sampling of what you can expect on the hunt. Now that I have truly scared the shorts off of you, THIS IS FUN, and it's addicting. We have found 12 so far with 2 not found. We have placed 2 and have 3 ready to go, our next ones will be for kids(got to get the kids involved). Most of what we have found have been from easy to moderate in difficulty and some have been really interesting. We have been to some great parks and forests. Even downtown Tampa(imagine that). Lots of places we didn't even know were there. If you go with common sense and prepare yourself you will have a great time and meet some great people(we have done both). Read the forums and print out all the pages for the cache you are going for, nothing worse than being right near it and not having all the info(been there done that). Bring a wide variety of items to exchange in the caches you find. I bring new log books(had to replace a few after they got tore up by racoons or soaked in water, [don't remove the old one]) and pencils or pens. I bring lots of ziploc bags to replace or put things in. With our rains down here it's easy for things to get wet. Don't bring any food or place any in the cache, critters have a good nose for food and will tear up the cache. Even if you got food smell on your hands or what you put in for trade. I hope this isn't too much for you to take. Remember Cache in and Trash out. If you don't know how to use your GPSR, get to know it before you go out, bring a regular compass and take readings often. Make a waypoint of where your car is parked. Pretty scary being out in unfamiliar territory and lose your way. You can get turned around easily. Oh yeah extra batteries. It's an adventure out there, enjoy it to the fullest. There are lots of things that I'm sure I've missed but thats part of the fun, experimenting and learning. Above all HAVE FUN. If you have any more questions I will be glad to help if I can. ...Good Caching and may all your birds be in view... ...Faithwalker...

 

[This message has been edited by faithwalker (edited 27 July 2001).]