Slow and steady wins the race………… Right?

With hours spent preparing, we were on the road to Sooke. Sarah-Bellum and I were accompanied by our friend Cheryl and her two dogs Holly and Finnigan. We had uploaded about forty caches to our GPS with the hopes of finding at least twenty.  We had set a ground rule for ourselves, no more than five minutes spent hunting for each cache. We have previously spent too much time looking for caches and leaving little time for others.



Well built little hut on the beach at Whiffen Spit.



Our first cache of the day was “Yeah Yeah Take Me For A Walk No No Don’t Sit” it was also our first mystery cache. After collecting the information for to find the final coordinates, we made our find. Great fun! From there our luck seemed to be on vacation. Locating our second cache was not meant to happen. Finnigan had managed to escape from the vehicle to chase after a squirrel. After collecting all of our passengers and giving up on the cache we moved on to the next set of coordinates. Success on locating any further caches proved to be hit or miss.  

We stopped for lunch at Rock Beach Grill and Grocery. Nice little place for a bite to eat. While we were looking over the menu, the waitress had asked a little girl at the table next to us if she wanted French fries or salad. She replied by saying “I don’t like salad… I’m not a leaf eater!” This unfortunately was the highlight of our trip.



View from Rocky Outlook Cache



My favorite cache of the day was “Rocky Outlook”; its location is near a rocky cliff right on the coast. Having reception problems, I ended up circling around the cache turning its rating from a 1.5/2 into a 1.5/4. I attempted this cache alone as the terrain looked too difficult with two large dogs. Climbing down a slope of boulders, the moss on one rock let go and I slipped landing my groin on the same rock, then fell forward smashing my knee on a rock, fell backwards from there to hit my shoulder on another rock behind me. I guess that’s what they meant by “you assume all risks while geocaching”. After lying there for a few minutes I gathered myself and continued to the cache location.  The view made it all worth it!

By the end of our day we had only located eight caches in total, a big letdown for Sarah-Bellum and I.

On the evening of March 31^st, I set out to hide my first cache ever (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=65d7c3f0-c0c6-463b-9bbe-548d0794fba7). The next morning at 9:50am a co-worker received a call from a local auto repair shop. The caller explained “Tell your salesman to stop geocaching and get back to work”. I quickly checked my email and confirmed that my cache had been published. My co-worker (the salesman) also known as THE GEOKNIGHTS, was the first to find the cache fourteen minutes after it was published. Congratulations go to THE GEOKNIGHTS for FTF. I frequently check the logs to see how many cachers have located my cache. After nine days there have been twenty logs.  I plan to set out my next cache toward the end of the month; I think I am going to get creative with this next cache container. Want to know what I am thinking? Well I guess you will have to wait and find out…………


- Laerok