Interview with CharlesIsland, Geocacher, Pt1.
Steel Valley Outdoors is pleased to present our second interview with a local Geocaching enthusiast, CharlesIsland.
CharlesIsland is the Screen name of a local resident who has made a big impression on the Geocaching.com site. I’ve been using this site as a resource since creating Steel ValleyOutdoors, and kept seeing his name pop-up all over the local caches. Although being active in the sport for less than five months, CharlesIsland is prolific: almost 300 finds and 60 hides to his credit, most local.
Tell us a little about yourself to start What, exactly, is Geocaching? On the geocaching website, there are references to Muggles. In the hobby, what is Muggle? Your Profile says you’ve been all over the country and had as many as 18 finds in one day..18? How did you manage that? How do you go about creating a cache? Do you scout the location first, or just show up and look for somewhere to hide it? I’d think Geocaching was developed by hiking and camping enthusiasts, yet there’s a lot of caches right here in an urban setting. Why? This is a photo of my 2 year old, Carter (Caching Carter) and my brother-in-law Sam. I was placing a cache named FUEL CELL in Mill Creek Park. You can see the massive uprooted tree, much like some in Kyle Woods. If you go to my profile and click on Gallery, you will see all the pics I have ever uploaded. Join us in Part two of the Interview for The most unusual Caches Charles Island has found, and Tips on geting involved in the sport yourself.
I grew up on the west side of Cleveland in Westlake, Ohio and moved here in 97 to be closer to family and get a job at GM. I enjoy geocaching, frisbee, kites, missions, Church and working with my hands. I’m married, have a 2 year old son named Carter, a baby due in April and my wife is a stay at home mom and at times will come with me on a cache hunt. I took the buyout from GM last year and I do Real Estate investing locally and consult nationally.
There are so many avenues to this hobby that I am not sure I could cover them all in this interview. Yes, treasure hunting is part of the hobby. Geocaching also has hundreds of events worldwide all throughout the year, ranging from small meet and greets put on by the locals to Huge Mega events where close to 1000 geocachers from around the country come to meet for a weekend. At these events cachers share their stories, dress their camp sites up for the theme of the event, trade and discover GeoCoins and Travel Bugs. We even go in groups caching throughout the local area. The Midwest Geobash this year was in Indiana. I took my wife, 2-year-old and sister. We drove there and cached along the way. We had a blast!!! I saw a friend from HS that I hadn’t seen in 12 years. I bought my first geocoins and took a dozen travel bugs home. Travel Bugs are dog tags that you fix to whatever object you like. Then they get their own website and have mission with a tracking serial number engraved on the dog tag. You drop them in a cache and when others find them, they log the find and then log when they drop it. They can leave comments on the TB website and even upload pics. Geocoins are similar except that they are actual coins that people design and mint. I have seen and own some elaborate coins. You can pay from $2 to $10. It comes with a tracking number and website and you can send it off on a global mission if you like. Two other types of popular trackables are the Diabetes Travel Bugs and the Jeep Travel Bugs. The Diabetes TB has its own site and when users go to log it they see information on Diabetes and can even participate in support for awareness. It has been a great way of spreading awareness to the wide spread dangers of Diabetes. The Jeep TB is fixed to a certain colored Jeep. Each year has its own color. This years color is Red. I have had 2 of them so far. They have a photo mission each month and you can take a picture with the Jeep TB in a theme pertaining to the goal and enter it to try and win a free GPS and even a free JEEP at the end of the year.
I remember when I first heard this term used in geocaching. It was in what is called a “cache page”, a webpage where the geocache is published. It consists of lots of information including the description of the cache. In some descriptions you will read “watch for muggles”. The term muggle comes from the Harry Potter series. Muggles are anyone that is not a witch,in other words, regular everyday humans that have no clue about the society of witches. In geocaching a muggle is anyone that has no Idea what geocaching is. It is important to put muggle warnings out so that cachers know they must use “stealth” in order to retrieve the cache. A cache owner’s biggest fear is that his/her cache has been muggled due to careless cachers. This would mean that a cacher gave away the hiding spot and a muggle ,not understanding the hobby, has taken the cache and either kept it or disposed of it. We do place cache notes in our caches telling muggles what it is they found and directing them to the website to get involved and we also ask that they leave it as they found it.
That was on 7/21/2007 at the Midwest Geobash. I was with my family and some friends. We had two car loads and we were caching together. The more on the hunt the faster you find them and then your off to the next cache. I have seen cachers with a lot more in one day than 18. For a newbie I guess its not bad, but I have hopes of boosting that number in the future. I travel for business and as a result have had awesome opportunities to cache all over. In Feb of 2008 I am going on a missions trip to El Salvador and hope to get a few while I am there.
The website spells everything out for you, but in a nut shell you find where you want to hide something and then you use your GPS
For me I have a book bag with pre-made log files, containers, swag and other cache items. Sometimes I will be driving by an area that to me looks like its needs a geocache. I will put out my nextel and search to see if there are any caches in the area. One of the rules requires that you are more than 1 tenth away from the nearest cache. If the coast is clear I will look for what jumps out to me as a great place to hide something. The rest is history.
I have placed caches in both urban and rural settings. The urban settings can be very exciting. It requires the cacher to come up with creative means to search and not look suspicious. We might pretend to be on our cell phone while aimlessly walking in circles looking for signs of a cache or taking fake pictures to look like a tourist. We use all forms of stealth that we develop a long the way. One of the many types of caches is called a Virtual Cache. This cache does not consist of a container, but instead requires the cacher to prove to the cache owner that they experienced the cache. For instance I did one in Chicago that was in a park downtown. It was a huge bean that had a mirror finish to it. You had to go up to the bean and take a picture of your reflection in it with the awesome city in the background and your GPS
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