Brentwood Bay Lighthouse & New Cachers Ahoy!

I got off work at my usual time just before midnight on Sunday May 26th and met with my friend for coffee at the Saanich Plaza Tim Horton's.  While we chatted and talked over some stuff he got a text from his wife asking when I could take them out geocaching so they could see what it is all about. 

Well what great timing for them, as I had planned to go do Brentwood Bay Lighthouse - GC1G195 in the afternoon of May 27th (technically that day in 12hrs).  I told him how I had checked out the tide charts, and that we should be able to walk out to this one, and what it would be like to get to it.  Excited he called his wife and told her, and when he hung up he told me they were in.

I woke up the next day and ensured that they made a geocaching.com account (for those that don't know, it's free) and went out to pick them up.  We didn't have the greatest of weather, but we sucked it up and headed out. 

Arriving in Brentwood Bay, we parked at the parking coordinates for an old cache that was located nearby and used the the low tide to walk out to the cache.  A little info for anyone reading this,  if the tide is out the exposed beach that is below the high tide line is considered public property.  So you can access tough to reach areas without trespassing.  But be smart and get back before the tide comes back, or you are stuck.

It was a lot of fun getting to this one.  We saw a ton of starfish clinging to the rocks waiting for the tide to come back, large live mussels strewn across the exposed beach, and actually got sprayed at by several that were buried below the sand.

Eventually we made it to the cache, and our friends now known as team_pasha were given the honours of retrieving the cache and signing first. 

I have to say that doing a 1/5 for their first cache is pretty cool.  And even cooler was being there to experience it with them. 

Welcome to the world of Geocaching team_pasha, may you be blessed with good reception and tons of finds!

Caching East Sooke Park with magicman65

On May 18th, 2013 I got together with my friend and fellow geocaching blogger magicman65 to do some serious caching in East Sooke Park.  Just Leafy really wanted to be a part of this adventure, but sadly she had to work that night.  This meant that she had to sleep all day to be ready for that long 12hr shift.

I woke up with great enthusiasm, walking to the blinds to our patio door and opened them to a sight I was hoping not to see.... rain!  But I still had hope as the rain was light and the clouds looked high in the sky.
You have to understand that I am a fair weather cacher.  I just can not stand getting wet in the rain.  Just Leafy likes to tease me and say things like "Oh you don't like getting wet, so why do you swim" or things like "You don't like getting wet, but you shower".  But as I said just above, I don't like getting wet in the RAIN!

Pulling out my phone I opened up Facebook and sent magicman65 a message to tell him what it was like out here by my home, and to my surprise his response was that it wasn't raining out there at his.
Now I know that Victoria/Saanich and the Westshore Communities tend to have slightly different weather from each other; however  now the question was, what was it going to be like in East Sooke.
Well it was was time to find out, and that meant getting in the car and heading out.

Well I tell you, the difference from in town to the Westshore was staggering.  About when I got to my exit into Colwood there was nothing but sun and blue sky.  I was floored!
I got to magicman65 and Angel Cheeks' place and parked the car pretty much right on time for our meet up of 10:00am, loaded up into his truck and away we went.

We arrived at the parking lot and got right to work.  We attempted one that I had got before "GC23V14 - get err of", but soon discovered it had a few DNFs (Did Not Finds) attached to it.  This caused us to call of that search, and we moved on.
This trail was familiar to me, and you readers will have read about it before.  Let's go back to Easter Weekend last year, you may remember that Just Leafy and I came out to ESP (East Sooke Park) with Paulboy.  If you haven't read it, you can find it by clicking HERE.  We did this very same trail loop back then!  Amandazon who owns the majority of the caches here archived the old ones and released a new set in the same locations.

This worked out very well for magicman65 and I, and we decided to make it a fresh new experience for me by doing the loop in the opposite direction to what we did a year ago.

What a day it was.  It was neat doing it the way we did, as I could not
predict the cache locations or the dips and climbs of the trail.  All the while we talked about everything geocaching (of course), and my up coming wedding.
We saw so many neat things along the trail on this trip, from cool insects like Centipedes and Black Beetles, to multiple trees growing out of the large horizontal limb of another tree, to smiling faces in the stumps.

All the caches we did were dry and in good condition.  And although they were all micros in the woods, they
were all trail side and easy to find.  This is great because it minimizes the impact on the surrounding environment.
Taking our time and having fun along the way we completed the circuit in about 5.5hrs and walked 12.9km, netting ourselves about 23 finds.  And returning to the truck we headed home.


Thanks magicman65 for such a fun day in ESP, and thank you Amandazon and all the other cachers who hid caches along this trail.  Without your contributions to the area this day could not have happened.

If you would like to read about magicman65's geocaching adventures, be sure to click on the banner below to link to his geocaching blog.  And don't forget to subscribe to receive notifications when he posts something new!

Mother's Day and FTFs

This Mother's Day weekend I decided to head up to Comox to visit with my parents.  It more or less was to be a surprise for my mom, so on Saturday night after the wedding we were attending we loaded up and headed out.

I first had to drop Just Leafy off in Nanaimo so that she could do the same thing I was doing, but I have to tell you the rain was insane.
One of the things I hate the most about this Island is the Malahat.  This particular highway is stunning to look at, but the people that drive it drive like they have a death wish.  And this is even more true during horrific weather conditions.  So the first leg of my journey was no fun, but I got her there safe and sound.  But now I had to get from Nanaimo to Comox on a particularly long and dark section of the highway.
But at this time of night there was not many people driving in that direction, so I was left to my own devices.

I pulled in sometime before 1am and after a small chat with dad headed to bed.

I awoke early the next day to find mom up already, so came around the corner and surprised her saying "Happy Mothers Day".  She was so glad to see me and as I handed her the gift I got her she said that thing moms always say "You didn't have to, you are my gift".
But eagerly she opened the gift, and she was very pleased.  You seed my mom is a big Harry Potter fan, and I have taken to getting her HP collectibles lately.  Last year I got her a House Gryffindor scarf....  But this year she got Hermione's Time Turner.  A beautiful replica of the prop used in "The Prisoner of Azkaban".
She set forth to setting it up in it's display case, and found it a nice home on her china cabinet.

After breakfast we loaded up into the vehicle and drove down to Bowser for a bit of geocaching.
The reason we headed out there was to look for a specific XTREME GPS TEAM cache that had been archived but could possibly be out there.  If we did find it we would be the first to in 8 long years.
The cache was "EMERGENCY ON PLANET EARTH CACHE - GCK718" (the TEAM loved their caps lock).  The reason I have made the cache name and GC number red and struck through is to emulate geocaching.com and serve as a reminder this is an archived cache.
Sadly we could not find it, but we were not 100% hopeful that we would.  The site has had a lot of construction waste dumped here, and could serve for a small CITO someday.

Our caching friend bigbluemarble was also here the day before trying the same thing, and when she heard we would be there texted me some coordinates for a cache she and Cougar Kid had placed that was not published yet.  She asked us to not claim the FTF, but to log it as a test run.  We were happy to comply and did as asked, leaving the FTF spot to the first to find after publication.
My poor dad Postie Bear was kind of hoping for a FTF, and I told him not to worry that he would get his first one someday.  We continued with a few more caches, and headed off with mom to have a coffee and a snack.

The next day dad did his logs, and because we had found a couple that belonged to someone he knew he made sure he mentioned that in his logs.  That cacher later emailed my dad and said that she had a cache that had been out 24hrs already and that no one had claimed FTF on it yet, and in the email included the GC number and the name "Little Tiny Teeth - GC4C0PH".  We quickly looked it up on my iPad and realized it was back where we had done some caching the day before, not to far from the Denman Island Ferry.
I looked at dad and said "There's your chance, let's go".  And we quickly headed out the door.

We arrived at GZ (ground zero/posted coordinates) and after a brief search we had the cache in hand.  Nervously dad opened the container and looked at the log, and with a grin said "We are first to find"!
He collected the toonie which was the FTF to prize and we signed the log.
Dad was pretty happy, he was all grins.  And on the way home we stopped for a nice cup of Joe (coffee) and discussed future caching plans.  As the day moved forward I loaded back up and headed for home.

It was a fun semi-caching weekend, and it was so nice to help dad get his first FTF!  Thanks for reading!!

The GO! Team's Wedding Photo Flash Mob - GC4B4K9

That is right, we are hosting a quick photo event the day of our wedding.  Our fantastic photographer Megan of Fetching Image Photography was absolutely ecstatic at the idea of a Flash Mob photo with the geocachers of Victoria and surrounding area.  So if you are a cacher on Vancouver Island or visiting the area on the day of the event and want to play a small part in our day, we invite you to log your intent to attend at the cache page.  Make sure to read the details of the event so that you know what is going on!

Also clicking on any of the blue text will take you to any of the relevant web pages!

WWFM X - May The Fourth Be With You

On Saturday May 4th, 2013 (May the 4th be with you) the tenth annual WWFM X (World Wide Flash Mob) Event took place.  The event here in Victoria (GC47HQK) happened at the beautiful and scenic Clover Point, while we were joined by others all over the globe at various other events.  The WWFM is described as such by the folks at geocaching.com:

"More than 15,000 geocachers attended one of more than 350 geocaching flash mob events spanning the globe. From a small beginning, the WWFM has grown astronomically, spreading around the globe to include more geocachers and more events every year. The WWFM events are 15 minutes of fun and excitement, packed with “typical” geocaching event activities like group photos, event meals (usually Hershey’s kisses), prize giveaways and trackable trading."

Originally it was just going to be me Shadowcaster of The GO! Team going to this event, as Just Leafy was at Goldstream Campgrounds camping with some of our friends.  But this morning (6:30am) as a I was getting my beauty sleep I got a call on my cellphone from her telling me that she was already up and would like me to come pick her up and bring her too. 
So up I got, quickly dressed with the fog of sleep still in my head I headed out to pick her up.

The weather today was just glorious, and when we arrived at Clover Point we were greeted with a crystal clear view of the Olympic Mountains in the distance. 
Already many cachers were gathered around (not at) GZ (ground zero), waiting for the appointed time to move into the center of the grounds to proceed with the actual Flash Mob. 

When the appointed time arrived, the waiting hoard of waiting geocachers turned and headed to the center.  The table in place and logbook set out, people poured in from all directions to sign.  Then we all lined up for the group photo taken by cameracowgirl, who has graciously given her permission for the photos to be used here on this blog.   Be sure to click on them to view the larger versions!
After that the draw for the WWFM X official geocoin was made, and Mr. Landsharkz was asked to reach in and pull out the winners name.  And the winner was AnnieMaroo, so a congratulations goes to her!  You enjoy that coin, we look forward to discovering it at a future event!

It was so nice to see all the usual friendly faces and to meet a few new people as well. The attendees of the event were from all over.  I believe we had some that were just off the plane this morning from the east coast, and as well there were visitors from Germany in attendance as well!
We always seem to talk to the same people all the time, yet we want to get around to more...  But it will have to be next time when we put our foot down and make sure we do.

An absolutely huge THANK YOU is in order for A-Team and G-Force for putting the time and energy into planning and hosting this event.  As well, another thank you goes to all who turned out to make the event a memorable one!