Posted in the Groundspeak forum by Galap

Here's one of my funnier caching stories from GC1DGKM A little Extra Incentive

[Editor's Note: I am going to preface his story with logs from that cache to give'the rest of the story'!]

[quote]June 24 by Galap (987 found)
We'll share a funny story on this one. We haven't bought a canoe/kayak yet so this was off limits for us....but I figured we'd go out and look anyways. We just so happened to have a small, bright yellow and orange, 4 foot inflatable boat in the truck (already blown up). The boat was in the truck because we were going to use it to float/wade out to the new Pemberton paddle too but unfortunately I was sick for the last couple of days and didn't get a chance to do that one yet. Soooo not wanting a perfectly good, inflated "boat" to go to waste we figured we'd just drive by and have a look-see at this cache. When we pulled up to the bridge I looked for a trail but really couldn't see one. The wife and daughter weren't about to get out of the truck after pulling double-digit ticks off of themselves from the last cache. Soooo I head into the woods with an inflatable boat over my shoulder and the GPSr and walking stick in the other hand. After about 100 feet of bushwacking, I realize that my little inflatable boat isn't going to survive going through the briars ahead of me...and I was only 200 feet away :( So I called off my hunt and returned to the truck defeated. I get in the truck and Mrs. Galap looks at me, laughed and says "you're such a dork!"

We'll be back![/quote]

[quote]June 24 by trowel32 (3305 found)
Galap...you couldn't get it because you are a MAN (note hiders)..you should have sent Mrs. Galap only joking of course [/quote]

I was pulling a 12-hour midnight shift last night when I read Trowel32's note on that cache and thought to myself "Oh no she didn't!..."

Now that the insinuation of being the weaker sex had been laid on the table I felt obligated to uphold the honor and integrity of every South Jersey male cacher out there. In other words, I now had a perfectly good excuse to go make an idiot of my self!

Sooooo I pull up to the bridge around 7 AM and unload my 'trusty' 4-foot-long plastic inflatable raft.

The only reason we have this raft is to hold the cooler of 'beverages' when we go tubing. It cost us $5. at a Five-and-Dime store. I've never bought a paddle for it so I figure the small shovel I 'coincidentally' have in the truck and my walking stick will suffice on my 'short' adventure.

As I put the 'boat' in the water I happen to glance at the rather large warning label emphasizing a max load of 120 lbs... Ya, I'm about to overload this puppy just a bit! I gingerly ease myself into the boat and try to get into a comfortable position. I think to myself "this isn't too bad" but then realize that I've already bottomed out at the launch site. Soooo I gently push off, trying not to pop a hole in the boat less than a minute into the adventure.

Once I get some buoyancy under me my weight sinks the center of the boat and the sides are now pretty snug around my legs as I kneel in the boat. I now look and feel like one of those very top-heavy, wobbly, unstable Walt Disney dancing Hippos wearing a bright orange and yellow mu-mu in the middle of a creek, in New Jersey, at 7 in the morning.

I finally get into the current and attempt to use my 'paddle' (a.k.a. shovel) to go down the creek.

Have you tried to paddle sitting in an inner tube?

Ya, I got pretty much the same affect.

Now I'm doing pirouettes in the middle of the creek but not really going anywhere. Sooooo I ditch the shovel and start using the walking stick to push/pull my way down the creek.

I'm going along pretty well now and am feeling a little more confident as I approach the 1st bend in the creek. That's when I realize that I am going a little too fast towards a rather large log. It was unavoidable that I was going to hit it so I braced for impact! THUNK. That wasn't too bad. Until I realized that I seemed to be sitting a little lower in the water! I had sprung a leak!

I frantically searched for the source. Right at this moment that scene from Robin Hood-Men in Tights with Little John 'drowning' in the little creek popped into my head and I busted out laughing at myself. Evidently the leak was in the boat's floor. She would still float, but now I was going to feel more of the bumps as I bobbed down stream.

I finally make it to GZ and the GPSr is pointing to the right (actually left, as I was floating backwards at this point). So I gently beach the boat on the bank and start looking around.

I should have gone with the geo-senses on this one because I wasted 10 minutes in the wrong position.

Evidently my GPSr doesn't get too accurate of a signal tucked away in my pocket as I fumble down the creek. After settling down, it points to the true GZ... on the other side. Crap.

Sooo I get back into my trusty boat and manage to cross over to the other side.

Getting to the cache log was interesting. I had to sit up a little bit in the boat, making my center of gravity and my precarious position that much more unstable. To compound the issue, the current is pushing me away, constantly forcing me to claw my way back to GZ. I finally sign in at 7:20ish A.M.

Now for the return trip. The paddle/shovel has proven to be useless, so I end up employing a combination of using the walking stick to push/pull my way and paddling with my hands. At times I had no choice but to paddle with my hands due to the current.

But here's the kicker... when I would lean forward to paddle it would create just enough of a crease in the boat to allow water in, so I had to be judicious in my use of paddling. I had thought about getting out of the boat around GZ and just bushwhacking back to the truck, but I felt that would be cheating the spirit and intent of the cache, so I toughed it out... besides, I had already made this much of an a** of myself, why quit now?

I finally get back to the launch site and kind of fall/crawl out of the boat. Both of my legs had fallen asleep on the adventure back upstream and weren't too cooperative anymore. After sitting on the bank for 5 minutes, I was able to stand up and collect my gear.

In hindsight I probably could have walked down the middle of the creek in less time and not have gotten as wet. But I definitely earned the terrain rating and FTF!

I get home sometime after 8 and slosh my way into the bedroom. Mrs. Galap raises her head from the pillow to see me still soaked from head to toe, stares at me, shakes her head and goes back to sleep.

I crawl into bed a short time later with a grin on my face, having proven that males are the superior cachers! (...tongue in cheek....Tim Allen/Home Improvement comes to mind for some reason).

Its all a matter of perspective I guess. As I start to fall asleep, the wife mumbles..."you're still a dork"

TFTH!
-galaP-

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