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DNF's

A couple of weeks ago we hunted three geocaches in the same park. We found two of the three. When reading logs of the two smileys we were certain the third was missing as several previous geocachers also found the same two of the three. The other cachers did not log their DNF's.

So this is just a friendly reminder to our fellow geocachers to log Did Not Finds. Cache hiders rely on the logs to aid in maintaning the caches and 2 or certainly 3 consecutive DNFs indicate that a check and probable replacement is definately in order.

There is no penalty for not finding a geocache and you shouldn't be embarrassed if you can't find one. Yes it does take a little time to log the DNF, but hey so it goes. Future seekers can use the info to determine how much time to spend at the cache site. There are so many geocaches out there that you can't find them all. Please be courteous in providing this valuable information so that we Geocaching hiders can maintain our caches and future seekers can enjoy this great hobby to the max.

Thanx!
Mike and Barb

Neither rain nor snow nor sleet

Bet you thought we were going to write about the US Postal Service. - Nope - this is all about Earth Day 2006. Well it didn't snow or sleet, but with temps in the forties and a drizzly rain it felt cold enough for snow and sleet.

We arrived at Henry Park in our hometown of Vernon for the Fox Hill Tower Geocaching CITO Event. hosted by Daddy's girl and Heckle We were eager to help clean up this area for sentimental reasons as it was the site of our first cache findback in 2003. It was hidden by our good friend Wide Glide. The Vernon Parks and Rec Department was having a townwide trail clean-up so they had coffee, muffins and bagels ready for the clean-up crews. They also handed out Earth Day shirts to all the participants.

Onward with bags, grabbers and clippers. Our area was all around the Tower itself and word had it from the parks crew that this area was the 'cleanest' of all the park spots they hoped to spruce up today. We believe they were WRONG.

Bikes, car hoods, TV's, batteries (checked them all and none were creative cache containers), street signs, industrial wire and conduit, numerous tires, paint cans, and flower pots to name a few of the bigger items.

And booze bottles, drink bottles and plastic cups galore. When the park guys came back with one truck to load our trash they were amazed. One dump truck didn't do it and they had to come back with a second.

After the clean-up came the usual swapping of travel bugs and geocaching stories. Feathers another good friend and number two in logging travel bugs, was there so it took a while for all the trades of coins, jeeps and bugs while we waited for lunch donated by two local Pizza Parlors.

Daddy's girl and Heckle did a fantastic job working with the Parks and Rec Department to set the event up and also in solicitating food and prizes from various vendors for the crew.

This was a very rewarding day. One to see how much trash we cleaned up, but more to know that we were able to give back something to great Mother Earth for giving us such a great playground!

Thanx!!!
Mike and Barb

Connecticut Caching Community Website

The Connecticut Caching Community now has its own website. The site was created by The Wilkens. Keith has done a great job with the site. It was created after The Wilkens and some other New England geocachers were threatened with a 3 day suspension on the New England forum because they were not staying on topic in the forums. Everyone is welcome. You do not have to be a Connecticut geocacher to join this great gecocaching site. If you are looking for ideas to create a site for your local area or if you just want to have some fun reading the forum you should visit the site.

Earth Day

This Saturday (April 22nd) is Earth Day. There are over 100 CITO (Cache In Trash Out) events scheduled for Saturday. We should all try to give back a bit to our community, and Mother Earth, by attending one of these worthwhile events. No CITO event near you? It is not too late to host one of your own in an area that could use some maintenance.

These events are good for the environment and help promote geocaching. CITO makes it easier for geocachers to be accepted by local, state and national officials. So, put on some gloves and help clean up an area for others to enjoy!

Big Numbers?

We have heard that some geocachers find 100 or more geocaches in a day. We wanted to put this to the test. But first lets do some math. How many caches can be done in an hour? If you can do one every ten minutes you can do 6 per hour. That equates to over 16 hours of geocaching to find 100 caches. That is one long day!

Here is the way our test went down.

We did a pocket query for geocaches in Southern Mass. We had been in the area before, but there were still hundreds we haven't found. We loaded the caches into GSAK and then imported them into Delorme Street Atlas Plus with Earthmate GPS. Then spent hours trying to plan a route to maximize finds.

We headed out at about 7:00 AM Saturday and got to the general area around 8:15. Our first mistake was to not stick to the plan. Barb would say there is one within a mile or two and we would head over to it and do it. Some of these were quickies, but many involved up to a half mile walk (as the crow flies) to find the cache. I don't know about the rest of you, but we are not able to drive to, hike over a mile, find and log the cache in 10 minutes or less. That being said we severally failed the test of finding anywhere near 100 caches in one day. We found 27 on Saturday and cached for about 5 hours on Sunday and found another 14. That totalled up to 41 for about 15 hours of caching.

On the bright side, we saw some really cool stuff and learned a lot of history. Maybe the history part was one of the things that slowed us down as we read a lot of historic signs and plaques. But hey, I wouldn't trade that fun and knowledge for a few extra smiley faces! Some of the places we visited included, the site where Myles Standish made shoes, a hillside over looking Boston Harbor where families watched a battle during the War of 1812 and a lighthouse where two unsung heroes saw the British coming in 1812 and warned the troops.

We do recommend using GSAK and the Delorme Street Atlas as it can minimize driving time between caches, however with the price of gas why go from one easy cache to the next instead of doing caches in a smaller radius? In other words, have fun and enjoy the day instead of just trying to rack up numbers!

Is Geocaching a fad or a phenomena

Looking at the Geocaching home page I noticed that there are now over a quarter of a million active geocaches. In fact there are 250,558 caches in 221 countries.

Phew - are we behind in our finds!

Helpful Hint

Ever in a forest and the GPS has poor reception? This is especially true for pine trees. We had this happen recently and remembered a trick I tried a while back. Go to the nearest clearing or area where the sun is shining. Wait a few minutes to get a really good lock on the GPS. Then re-enter the coordinates or click on find the hearest cache. Get a good heading and distance. You should be able to pace off the distance in the correct heading and walk right to ground zero. This technique has helped us find numurous caches that we otherwise would not have found.

Give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

What is the best GPS for geocaching?

There is a lot of talk about what GPS is the best for finding a geocache. In reality almost any GPS is as good as another for finding caches. There are just too many variables to the coordinates that are posted to say that any GPS is better than another. First of all, what GPS did the hider use and how prudent was the hider in marking the coordinates? Some geocachers, due to inexperience or lack of knowledge how gps units work, might just push the mark button and use those coordinates. Some geocachers have a GPS that allows them to set the unit down and download 100's of coordinates and average them.

We do not have one of these models. We prefer to take readings from several different directions and average them. I then try to tweak the corrdinates by adding or subtracting one or a few thousands from the latitude and longitude to try and get them as close as possible. This is quite easy. If you are consistenly 20 feet south of the cache you can add one or two to the north coordinates. If you are consistently 20 feet west of the cache you can subtract one or two from the west coordinates. When I think I have good coordiantes, I hand the GPS to Barb and she walks to the cache site from a distance and from each direction. If the coordiantes seem good we go with them. For devious hides we return on several different days until the coordinates are as good as possible. This is a good practice as you will get different satellites on any given day or at different times of day. Other considerations are cloudiness and tree cover. We usually cringe when we have to hunt down a micro hidden in a pine forest. Pine trees reak havoc with reception.

So lets say that you have a great GPS with an extenal antenna and WAAS and go out on a clear day. The hider has a cheaper unit, no WAAS, went out on a cloudy day and pushed mark. Does that expensive unit really make it easier to find the cache. I don't think so!

In summary. It doesn't make a difference if you have a Garmin, a Magellan or some other make of GPS. Buy a unit that you can afford and go out and have fun. It isn't the GPS that finds the caches, it is you!