GeoCashing

[AMFADVENTURES]

A friend of mine turned me on to this just recently. It is a real life treasure hunting game that you can participate in from just about anywhere in the world. The treasure troves are variably accessible, some even from a wheel chair. I thought this might get me to do a little more walking and hiking and I can even do it while I'm cycling.

Check it out:
http://www.geocaching.com/

[banshee]

They started doing this for scuba now too. Anybody tried that?

From what I've heard, it goes like this. GPS doesn't work underwater, so you take your bearing on surface, and then use your compass the rest of the way.

List of some scuba caches, plus your dive operator will know of more, I'm sure.
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/...0-d1aa7347b3ef

[AMFADVENTURES]

Oh, that's way too cool. I've got an arm long list of sunken ship coordinates, mostly WWII. Unfortunately, they're in SE Asia and pretty remote. I've got to get more familiar with GeoCaching. Just ordered a new GPS unit, I could get pretty excited about this!

Are you a diver Banshee?

[banshee]

AMF - Yes, I am a diver, but just open water advanced - all in Carribean and Gulf of Mexico. Done about 50 dives in the last 3 years.

Got my wreck diver cert when I took a vacation to Grenada. Did about 4 wrecks there. Was a lot of fun. I had a hard enough time not banging my head on things inside the wrecks - would be ugly if I were looking for a cache at the same time!

You do any of the tech diving stuff?

[AMFADVENTURES]

Banshee, if by technical you mean mixed gas, thought about it but never really saw the need. If you mean PADI certs, didn't do much of that either. We had a pretty sweet deal, our own compressor, tanks, boat and access to lots of side scan data so rarely had to rely on dive shops or resorts. But, being land locked now, about the only diving I've done in the last 6 years has been for lobster in the Fla. Keys. The lobster season rules were that you could only have 4 in possession, including in the freezer so pretty much had to eat what you catch on a daily basis. Tough duty, but for the truly intrepid.... Florida has also been protecting Jew fish for a while. There are some VERY large Jew fish in the Fla. Keys.

Saw a couple of GeoCaches in a lake near me but turned out it was only a base point and you had to solve a puzzle to get to the actual location back on shore. It sure looks like it could be fun though.

Later,

[mstile]

Geo-caching

I've been geocaching for about a year. It's a blast, great family fun. My 7 year old son loves it. We combine it with our canoe expeditions for a great mix of on-water and trail fun.

PS - Careful of the battery on your GPS as you wander through the woods. We ran out once and had to use old-fashioned trailblazing to get back to our canoe!

[AMFADVENTURES]

I've been geocaching for about a year. It's a blast, great family fun. My 7 year old son loves it. We combine it with our canoe expeditions for a great mix of on-water and trail fun.

PS - Careful of the battery on your GPS as you wander through the woods. We ran out once and had to use old-fashioned trailblazing to get back to our canoe!

Got my GPS and downloaded a few caches, grand kids, 3,6,and 9, are coming next week, I think it will be fun. We live near a somewhat historic canal and trail, there is a cache about every 150 ft, can't wait!

Batteries, good point, I also understand a hand held compass still comes in handy.

[mstile]

We've had good luck in finding the caches, but recently as we've branched out I have learned that some are specified 'micro-caches' and these can be tiny, size of a quarter.

Definitely to avoid frustration, unhappy campers and all that, I like to take notes from the web site on some of the hints. Simple as: silver cylinder 8.5 ft up oak tree to find large stump, walk 10 feet toward rock wall, lift largest rock, can save the whole trip from turning into chaos. At least I have noted as much with my 7 year old son .