With winter approaching I decided to come up with a cache that can be located from home but requires lots of effort to log a find. This cache allows you to stay warm and dry while meeting Geocachers around the world!
(Original description above)
In order to post a waymark in this category you will have to make contact with another person. It just happens that about 90% of the time that it will be a Geocacher who is located in a foreign country! He may not even speak your language! Intrigued?
The way this waymark works, you will first have to generate a coord whose value is based on your entire geocaching/waymarking Username, without adding leading zeroes. Then you need to locate this point
somewhere on the globe, contact a Geocacher or waymarker in that area and have him/her snap a picture of his GPS at those coordinates.
Sound simple? Still intrigued? Then dig in!
Now to the logistics:
- Convert your entire Geocaching handle to a coordinate (March 23, 2021 update: it must match the format of N 31°45.867). Do not add zeroes to the beginning.
Using a telephone keypad and your Username, convert your entire Username into numbers such that: A, B or C='2'
D, E or F='3'; etc.
If your name is five letters or shorter, you must use the entire name and can fill in the remaining values as desired or leave them "open" for your buddy to have some leeway. You must use your regular Username, no creating new ones just for this cache!
This process will generate one coord. The other coordinate can be anywhere.
IE: my Username 'Crusso' converts to 27°87.76'. However, "87" is larger than "60" minutes which is a problem. If this happens, as it will with some names, just add "1 (one)" to the degrees and subtract 60 from the minutes. This gives me 28°27.76'. Geocaching uses the DD°MM.mmmmm' format, which is degrees, minutes.decimal minutes. No conversion is needed on the decimal portion.
My result is 28°27.76' as one coord. I can add 0-9 to the end to space it out to seven places or leave it "open" (to allow for some variance at the cache site). That coord. can be either N/S/E or W depending on how it converts.
- Locate your appropriate Lat or Long line on a map or globe.
My coord. (28°27.76'), when taken as 28 deg N goes through N. Africa & Mexico; 28 deg S goes through S. Africa, S. America & Australia; 28 deg E goes through Central Africa & Some of Europe; 28 deg W is mostly water. This gives you THOUSANDS of square miles of area to work with.
Now comes the tricky part!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to persuade another Geocacher or Waymarker to get out there and take a photo of his GPSr (with the coords clearly visible) at ANY coord. (choice is his) that intersects with the coord that you created from your username above. A photo of the surrounding area would be great as well!
A point located IN a foreign city would make a better photo then somewhere in the woods! Let's see who has the most imagination and comes up with the most interesting place.
I must be able to translate your username and clearly see that that coord. is accurately represented in the GPS photo.
- Once that photo is taken, you need to get it into your possession.
Your buddy can upload it for you to the site. He can email it for you to post. You then create the waymark page with the required information. Indicate in the waymark variable who took the photo for you.
-
Dig out those globes, brush off your language dictionaries, and warm up your skills of persuasion.
Email me if you need help with the conversions!