Aloha!

As I alluded to in my last posting about breaking my GPS, over the course of the past two and a half weeks I have been working out in Hawaii. I work in renewable energy, and as part of my “day job” I over see the day-to-day operations at wind farms across the US. I am very fortunate that two of the projects I am in charge of are located in Hawaii; one on Oahu and the other on Maui.

While it is certainly beautiful out here, traveling for work never really affords you the chance to explore your destination in the way a vacation would. I found myself going directly from my condo to the worksite, often leaving before the sun came up and returning after it was down. I could only day dream about the amazing caches that must be located near hidden waterfalls or along the infamous “road to Hana” which is supposed to both beautiful with the views that are available as well as dangerous with some sections of the road being on 100’ cliff sides without guard rails.

During my time on the islands, I hopped back and forth a couple of different times, but each time on Maui I stayed in a town called Kihei which is on the western side of the island along Maalaea Bay. Kihei was a great spot offering some amazing beaches and a hopping nightlife for unwinding after a day of exploring, or in my case, working. If you stay in the “Sugar Beach Condos” like I did, make sure you check out the small hole in the wall bar called “Dina’s Sand-witch”. It was a great melting pot of locals and tourists and had a great atmosphere (they staple dollar bills to the walls and allow you to write on them first to “leave your mark”).

Of course I couldn’t resist the idea of doing some geocaching, and so I did set out a couple of nights, iPhone in hand, to find some caches while either walking along the beach or getting in a quick jog.

Near my hotel was a geocache called “For: Prickly’s Brother” (GC15FXQ) This cache was located near a bird haven called “Kealia Pond Bird Sanctuary”.  The Hawaiian people take the preservation of their native plant and wildlife very seriously, and this area is important for them as it protects several different species of waterfowl. If you’re ever in this area, there is a great boardwalk through a nearby (right across the street) inland pond called Kahana Pond. You can walk right along this boardwalk and see several protected bird species in their natural environment without disturbing them.

I think the most impressive thing for me was how many other geocachers I saw out and about. They are always easy to spot, looking down at either their smart phone or GPS and looking around to make sure no muggles are looking in their direction. I introduced myself to a few and was shocked that every single one (it was 7 or 8 easy) was from Canada! I never realized that Maui was such a winter haven for our frozen cachers from the north, but growing up in Maine myself I can certainly appreciate the need to escape winter, if only for a few months!

I found several other quick “cache and dash type” caches along the same route, and even along the road on my way to the wind farm which sits on the ridge just to the north of Kihei. I plan on taking a weekend for myself the next time I visit Maui, which should be later this year, so you can expect a more to come about this amazing and beautiful geocaching destination!

Do you have a Maui geocaching stories you’d like to share, or just a Hawaii geocache you’d like to recommend for my next visit out? Please let us know! You can reach us through our contact page, our facebook wall, or just leave a comment below. Mahalo!

Puzzle caches are one of my favorite types of geocaches to hunt for as they offer an additional challenge to overcome even after you’ve located what you’re fellow geocachers have left for you. Recently I got the idea that I might want to build a cryptex and hide it as part of a puzzle cache.

If you aren’t familiar with what a cyptex is, don’t feel bad. The word is actually fairly new and was created by popular author Dan Brown. If that name sounds familiar it should! Dan Brown was the author of the 2003 best selling book “The Da Vinci Code”. The name “cryptex” is a combination of the words cryptology and codex, and wikipedia defines it as “a small, portable vault used to hide messages”. In the book, and later the movie, the characters rush through a series of clues and events to find the secret code to open their cryptex and reveal a secret message. Sound familiar? The concept of a cryptex loans itself very easily to geocaching. (If you haven’t read the book I highly recommend it)

A cryptex is described in the Da Vinci Code as a stone cylinder that is made up of 6 smaller “stone donuts” stacked one on top of the other. The two end caps of the cryptex allow the user to look into the device and see the contents that are hidden inside. Each of these donuts is carved with the entire alphabet on the surface and in order to open up the device and retrieve the contents the user must spell out the correct word along a single line. Once the disks are aligned, it works much like a lock in that all of the tumblers align and the device can be opened.

Dan Brown even went a step further making his device able to destroy the message inside if it fell into the wrong hands. In the novel he states that the paper on which the secret message is written is made of thin papyrus wrapped in a glass vial of vinegar. If someone tries to force the device open, the glass vial would break, releasing the vinegar and destroying the paper with it.

As with anything these days, you can now buy a cryptex already made. I’ve included some links to Amazon below where you can go and buy such commercially made cryptexes if you want. I even added a link to the book, which as I said above is worth a read.

• Mini Cryptex
• The Da Vinci Code Cryptex 1:1 Scale Prop Replica
• Cryptex(tm) Security Box – Black Marble Pattern
• The Da Vinci Code

Or perhaps you’re like us and would like to try and make your own? You really don’t need to be that handy or have a large collection of expensive tools in order to do so. This video is not our own, but it is the one that I’m using as I do try to assemble one for setting out as a geocache. I thought I would share it with all of you in case you also want to give it a try!

If you do decide to build one, please send us a photo! Even if you decide not to build or buy a cryptex, we hope you’ll keep an eye out for one during your geocaching and let us know if you do! We’d love to hear about it! Send us an email on our contact page, Facebook wall or leave a comment below!

Have you been searching for a geocache and seen an icon that looks like one of the angry ghosts from the Super Mario games? Wondering why this cache icon looks different than you may be used to? You’ve stumbled upon a “grandfathered” type of cache called a virtual cache.

While searching for geocaches might bring you to some interesting places to find a cache, with a virtual cache the location is the cache! There is no logbook, no container – only the realization of finding a place that a fellow geocacher thought was worth visiting.

Logging a virtual cache often requires an action on your part. Maybe you need to find an answer to a question, take a picture, maybe you need to do ten jumping jacks, do a handstand or do the moonwalk. The point being that the creator of the cache is the one setting the rules on you being able to log this as a find.

What do we mean by saying that these caches “grandfathered”? It means that at one time in the past the owners of geocaching.com allowed virtual caches to be created and posted on the website. They have since stopped allowing this, but allowed the virtual caches that were already in place to remain there. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can still share your favorite locations in this manner, just on another site run by the same people! Check out www.waymarking.com where “virtual caches” can be posted as waymarks.

Do you have a favorite virtual cache? We’d love to hear about it either on here or via our facebook page! Post a comment below or send us a note by going to our contact us page. 

Guest content author;  Rachel Cohn

Hello Madcachers! One of the most exciting things we get to do as part of taking over this site is to get to interact with all of you; whether it’s on our Facebook page or through comments here on the site. More and more we’ve been asking you, our devoted readers and contributors to offer up your geocaching stories for posting here on the site. We’re happy to say that someone finally took us up on that offer and we’re happy to share her guest narrative below, along with a video she produced and posted to youtube.

When I first heard about geocaching, I certainly had my doubts.  My mother and sister quickly became infatuated with it, but I, trying to maintain my status as the coolest member of our family, refused to participate in the activity.  However, only a few weeks after my mother tried to introduce me to geocaching, my friends asked me if I would like to go geocaching with them.  I was shocked that my mother was participating in an activity that could be socially acceptable! So I decided to give it a try.

I quickly became obsessed.  Over the summer, my friends and I found around 30 caches, and had a wonderful time in the process.  We would all compete to see who could find the cache first, running around like maniacs trying to seem sane in front of muggles (non-cachers).  So when I went to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU this summer and needed to select a topic for my short film, I of course immediately went to geocaching.

I knew that geocaching was not un-popular, but I still felt as if I needed to help bring light to what geocaching is and help spread the word.  When I pitched the idea to my professor, he immediately liked it.  I wrote the script for my short film, drawing from my previous geocaching experiences to help show what is so great about geocaching.  And I must say, I think that my film accomplished what I had hoped.

After every showing of my film, I have many people come up to me and ask me if geocaching is real.  Even the actors in my film, George Booth and Sally Fowler, both became avid geocachers after their wonderful performances in Geocachers: Pirates of Swag.  I love filmmaking, and I love geocaching, and I’m very pleased that I could incorporate both of these loves into an entertaining, yet informative five minute film.  I hope that my film will continue to help spread the word of geocaching, and how fun it is!

Thank you Rachel for sharing the story of how you fell into this hobby, and your video – I love the quality and time put into this! What did you guys think of her video?

Are you interested in posting a video, story, travel log etc about geocaching on our website? We’d love to review and if we like what we see, post for others to read! Please email your stories to geofox@cachebarn.com

Like any new program – there is some getting used to the functions and how one interacts with the software. To that end we reached out to Andy Lehman (who runs the geocaching podcast) to see if we could work out a special offer for the madcacher readers on a helpful tool that he created.

Andy has created a couple of “how to” videos for using this equipment that are very reasonably priced, and even more so because he’s offering our readers a deal! Use the code madcacher to get 10% off the purchase price! Just follow the link below in order to download the videos.

 Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) Video Tutorials

Do you like the videos? We want to hear your feedback!

It’s true folks, The Mad Cacher is under new management. Two GeoCaching Nuts, who have been fans of this site for awhile, wanted to create a place on the web to share their GeoCaching experiences and provide helpful hints to others. As they brainstormed how to go about this, a lightbulb went off, why not purchase ownership rights to www.madcacher.com and begin our efforts with a strong following of dedicated readers? After some careful thought, an offer was made to the owner and a peaceful handoff was made. So who are these GeoCaching Nuts and what does this mean for the site?

The Mad Cacher will now be operated by two crazy Mainer’s, Kurt Milligan and EJ Martin. We grew up together in Rumford, Maine and started GeoCaching around the same time. Our families introduced us to the hobby and we were instantly hooked. Today, we have found Cache’s in several different states, launched a series of travel bugs, and most recently have begun talks with a GeoCoin provider in the Netherlands in hopes of being able to supply the coins here in the States at a more reasonable price. We have a lot of “Big Ideas” and wanted a forum to launch those ideas. The Mad Cacher was a perfect fit. We’ve since moved away from Maine, with Kurt living in Virginia and Ej in New York, but have not lost our shared appreciation for the hobby introduced to us years ago.

You may be thinking, “Well good for you guys! But what does that do for me?” To that, we say “Everything.” Our mission is to

New Management

provide consistent, quality information about GeoCaching and promote community interaction and involvement. We envision this site to be a resource for fellow Cacher’s and a friendly environment to share stories and ideas. www.madcacher.com will not be a site centered around advertisements and affiliate products, however there will be some in hopes of offsetting some of the costs in running the website. We will not shove products at you, but we will offer items from time to time that we have found useful or we come across a deal that is too good to pass up.

Share with us your ideas.

What will the future of MadCacher look like? Here is where we could use YOUR help. We fully intend to revamp the website, but before we hire a developer we think it prudent to see what you, the reader, would like. What do you think would make the website unique? What types of topics would you like discussed? The sky is the limit so be creative!

Because we are so anxious to put our own stamp on the site we ask that you provide your suggestions within the next two weeks. Suggestions for the website can be emailed to geofox@cachebarn.com. We hope to hear from you!

- Two GeoCaching Nuts -

***A note to our readers! This posting was put up by the original owner of the website. We do not share this sentiment and think the more caches in the world the merrier. We had thought about deleting this post, and actually did briefly remove it from the website when we took over. BUT we do think that both sides of the story need to be heard, and are returning it with this adder in hopes that those of you who use and love opencaching.com will also show your support for it.

Original Post

Just a few days ago Garmin, one of the leading providers of GPSr’s launched a new website, OpenCaching.com. This new website is basically their attempt to control the Geocaching market so they can sell more GPSr’s since GPS sales are going down the tube due to increased smart phone use… smart phones have built-in GPS technology.

I’m certainly not an attorney, but it’s very surprising that this is even legal. Their site doesn’t make a single mention of Groundspeak’s Geocaching.com, which is the Official Geocaching website (what a great way of saying thanks for the millions of dollars in GPS sales Groundspeak has sent their way) yet they present it as if it’s the originator and official site, although it’s simply a complete, unfair and shady copy!

The two sites seem to have similar features, although OpenCaching does have a couple small features that I wouldn’t mind seeing integrated into Geocaching.com The only major differences that I can see are that OpenCaching DOESN’T HAVE REVIEWERS, you don’t have to pay the small fee for a premium account and there aren’t hardly any caches showing up on their site, which is almost hilarious. The ONLY thing that may help them get going is lack of a yearly fee, but it’s a small fee anyway.

Dear Garmin, We understand you’re going broke. Sorry to hear that. Trying to fix something that isn’t broke isn’t going to prevent your company from going broke. It’s only going to make (scratch that) it only makes you look like a desperate, shady operation!

Let’s take a stand, Geocachers. Let’s boycott this shady operation and continue to support Geocaching.com

What are you thoughts?