Busy Day

Today was a busy day of Geocaching. I met up with another cacher that lives in the neighborhood, and we hit six caches this afternoon. These are a small sample of pics that I took along the way.

Kin Village, and Parts North

I've only been at this since June 15th (2008), but I found cache number 13 today. It was at a little park in the southern portion of Kin Village. There's some sort of monument there, but I have no idea what it's a monument to (cannot read the kanji).

Here's a few pictures from that small park, as well as from the "rest stop" on the expressway near there.

Kurashiki Dam

My son and I made a stop at the Kurashiki Dam to find a cache. It was hot and humid, but the view was great.

My First Geocoin

Here's a picture of my first Geocoin. Geocoins are collectible items that can be tracked on the Geocaching website. An owner can track everywhere that the Geocoin goes, and even list its "goals" on the website. Pretty neat stuff.



I'm just not sure how eager I am to place my first Geocoin in a cache, and leave it at the mercy of the public. This one might remain in my possession, for more than one reason: It's my first, it was a gift, it represents a significant chapter in my life (my stay here on Okinawa), and there were only 300 of them made. Yep; this one might stay in my hot little hands for a while.

Learning the Ropes

I met up with another, more experienced Geocacher today, and he was patient enough to help me find five caches here close to my house. Here's a couple of snapshots from two of those caches. Thanks TLBeers!

Pineapple Park

These were taken at Pineapple Park in Nago. It's located just a couple of miles off of Highway 58 on route 84. It was hot and humid, but a good time was still had by all.

It would also seem that my wife has some photography skills. You can click on all of the images for full sized versions.

All photos were taken with an Olympus Stylus 830.

Ikei Island Caches

Here's some pictures from our trip out to Ikei Island. Ikei Island is accessible via a bridge that connects it to the main island of Okinawa. It's a beautiful area, but it was hot and humid, causing us to keep our searches for caches pretty short.

Hot Caches

Saying it was hot today is an understatement. Today is the hottest day that we've experienced this year, and it quickly put a damper on our Geocaching adventures. Granted, it's much hotter in some of the western parts of the States, but the humidity there is nothing like it is here (no; not even in the South).

We were "O for three" today. The first stop that I made was with my son, and the restaurant at the cache site was closed for renovations. That meant that it was crawling with construction workers. My second stop ended up being a temple, and there were plenty of people there worshiping in their way...We left that one alone. The next one was a park on the beach, and it ended up being infested with people too. I think that one will be a night cache, if ever there was one.

What a bummer. The heat and humidity made me thankful for air conditioning when we got home. My wife felt the same way. The above picture is of our last attempt at a find today. We were under constant scrutiny, and couldn't search in the manner that we wanted to.

New Gadget!

I took the plunge and got a new GPS receiver. While the Garmin Colorado was tempting, I just can't justify spending 600 bucks on a GPS. I almost can't justify buying a new GPS at all, but my old one simply lacks accuracy. I was astounded to see the difference between my 2002 model, and a newer model that a buddy of mine has. His got him within a foot or so of a Geocache, and mine was pointing me in the opposite direction (when it wasn't losing its signal).

I opted for the Garmin Gpsmap 60. No, not the 60 CSX, just the 60. It has the features I want, and the fewest of the ones that I don't care about (color screen? no thank you ma'am). One of the coolest features is that it will download waypoints directly from the geocaching.com website. My buddy with a Lowrance model is green with envy about that feature.

It also has most major cities in the U.S. already loaded, with turn-by-turn navigation. It has auidible alerts for waypoint proximity, and other events. I can load maps to it from the internet, and there's no shortage of them out there. It also has a 12 channel, WAAS enabled receiver, instead of the first generation reveiver that my old one has.

I got a good price on it, and it's head and shoulders above my old one. I'm going to give it quite a workout over the next few years as well.