Geo-Valley.com | Ships of the Cache

This is trying another variant of geocaching because of unlucky events at a cache placed not careful.

In our area a series of four caches (three traditionals and one bonus) bothered us since a while because of a special muggle making it impossible to retrieve the second cache, the first cache being muggled and the third cache being totally wrong declared as difficulty 1.

Steffi decided to do the cache series on her own when I had to work to avoid the muggle. She found the three caches leading to a bonus cache. Unfortunately one hint was missing. She located the bonus by accident and some guessing. It is placed under a bridge, that leads over a hill.

All this was fine until here.

Unfortunately on both sides small gaps between the hill and the bridge are offering a trap. These gaps lead to a cave under the bridge. From one side, everything that falls through this gap is gone forever. No way to get it back other than removing the hill. The box is placed on the other side.

When Steffi had retrieved the box she opened her bag for some trades. It was just then, when her camera decided to slip out, fall to the side of the bridge and take the rather improbable path of falling right through the gap under the bridge.

Shortly after this I received the call of my wife being very desperate. Though the camera was not cheap it has a big ideological value for her. She calmed down and we agreed to take a look at the scene when I returned from work.

Fortunately the camera fell in the only gap where it was retrievable. It lay about 12 feet away from the gaps beginning.

We knew the small camera bag had some spare batteries inside. A while ago Steffi had bought some strong magnets. She attached a string to it and we tried the first fishing that evening. I managed to catch the batteries with the magnet and to pull the camera . It was just a small bit until a small rock spur stopped the cameras movement and made the string snap apart.

Rather disappointed we left the scene and bought two extendable brush sticks and a long chain to build a “camera rod”.

Two days later it took us two hours, loads of sweat and unfortunately some unplanned rearrangement of plants and a lot of improvement of my “camera rod” to pick up the camera. Mostly it was me lying in the mud still not dried from the rainfalls the day before.

A large chunk of a root let the camera fall back down at the first catch I made about one hour and a half after our arrival and preparations. Luckily it landed with the batteries upside and where I could see it. At the third catch I managed to retrieve it with Steffis support and a lot of barked commands.

In the end we found all four caches, successfully fished for the camera with a lot of challenges not all described here and learned a big deal: do not trust the owners declaration of the cache.

Though it is often accurate, these caches were not. There might be risks the owner itself might not see, so check the area before doing anything and always make sure to be safe. It is not enough to just think you are safe. Always ask yourself what can go wrong here?

We were glad this time and I didn’t even get yelled at because of my barked commands.

Be safe.