Coincidences, Memories and Other Stuff

Those of you who frequented the old MGA forums or the ACGA forums, likely recall that I have a fascination with coincidences and posted a number of stories about caching coincidences. A few coincidences occured to us this weekend so I thought I would include the stories in my latest ramblings.

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Acadian Multi cache coincidence

Coach Eagle is a cacher who is originally from Moncton and who now lives and caches in Montreal. She recently created a wonderful multi cache in the Moncton-Dieppe area which gives us a glimpse into the history of the Acadians who first settled in this area. The cache is an old fashioned style multi where you are required to travel around picking up information which you use to calculatet the coordinates for the cache. In this case, you travel to 9 diffeent monuments which provide historical information about the first Acadian families. We highly recommend this cache. We are certain you will enjoy it. Coach Eagle did a great job with the cache page, providding details in both languages.

http://coord.info/GC2KBP3

The first coincidence is contained in our log for the cache. Here is a portion of that log:

Yesterday we went for the last few waypoints. When we had all the info, we calculated the location of the final. We were certain that we had the correct answer as the coords brought us to one of Moncton’s many trails. We walked the trail and the gps led us to a lone tree 12 meters off the trail. We headed for the tree and disturbed some ducks who had settled down for the night in the long grass. They didnt like our presence and let us know noisily. We searched and didnt find the cache. We broadened our search and Ma found the cache hanging in a tree 25 meters away. The coords may have been off but we were glad to find it.

Merci pour la cache.

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A second coincidence about Coach Eagle is that she is related to some of the people that are in my poker group. I found that out by logs that she made when she took them out caching with her.

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A third coincidence that we only discovered recently is that she happens to be the daughter of a couple that we met many years ago on a cruise in the Carribean

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The SHEPODY coincidence

At the event Saturday we shared a table with KDCacher and his wife Cindy. His original caching name was SHEPODY and many of us older cachers always think of him as SHEPODY. It is always great to spend time with Shepody and share stories with him. He has been caching since 2003 and loves caches that involves trips to wilderness areas. He loves an adventure. He took us with him as witnesses when he did the Pole Vault in Sackville.

Saturday he told us about his non-caching hike to the Confluence. I was surprised to hear that term as I had first heard it the week before in a conversation with Paul Gaudet, a friend of ours in the Outdoor Enthusiast Club. Paul had told us that he and a few people would be bushwacking to a remote wilderness area of Fundy Park to find the confluence of three rivers ( I am aware of East Branch and Point Wolf rivers). It turns out to be totally coincidental that Shepody went with the group doing the hike. He told us how they didnt get to the confluence because the route they took brought them to the top of a high water fall and they could not climb down to continue their trek. They plan on attempting it again from another direction. He also mentioned that Scouter kevin was with them. Scouter Kevin was one of the early cachers in the area and is a well known local photographer. I believe he was with the group to take photos.

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The ARGUS2 coincidence

ARGUS2 is one of the original cachers in the Moncton area. He always loves an adventure and is known for placing fantastic quality caches. The changes to caching over the last few years may not be the kind of caching that appealed to him and he had been doing a lot less caching lately. It now seems that he is getting back into it.

One of our favourite caches was his Enchanted Passage cache which brought you to a stand of pine trees that were planted in the 1930’s by a boy scout troop in what is now a remote area of Irishtown Park. In order to help new cachers find the cache, we placed a cache at the new parking lot for that area of the park.

The Enchanted Passage cache got muggled and had to be archived. ARGUS has since placed a new cache to replacce it.

http://coord.info/GC35H6M

Around noon on Sunday, we were getting ready to leave home to get our cache of the day to continue our streak when we got an email notification of a new cache by Argus on the trail in the area of the other cache in the Park. We entered the coords into the gps and headed out. When we parked, I decided to try for the new cache using our IPhone. The new cache should have been the closest but the IPhone did not list it. I played with the phone and addressed it with colourful language as we walked to the cache, but had no success.

But then we had a big surprise as we discovered Argus at the cache site. He was working on the mechanics of his cache and was also surprised to meet us there becaue he had only submitted the cache a few hours earlier and he hadnt completed his work on the cache placement. It seemed clear that the cache reviewer had made a mistake and had withdrawn it.

We had a long chat with Argus as we hiked back to our vehicles. I hope he keeps up his interest in caching as he is a great cacher and one of the nicest people that we know.

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Memories

All the above brought back memories of the old days. In March 2005, 6 local cachers invaded our place to then head out to the caches on Shediac Island. They were ARGUS2, DRAGOON, CACHE JORDAN, RAYAR, FUNKY NASSAU and JOHNNY-CACHE. It was the inspiration for the Ice Walk Event.

This was our first meeting with Argus2 as mentioned in one of his logs:

Our group of 6 continued along the trail until it swung to the left and headed for the last cache on the island which we found quite easily. Great trails here! Took metal brainteaser puzzle and left an eyeglasses repair kit. Definitely want to come back in the summer.
For the return trip, we stayed together on the trail but when we hit the frozen bay, johnny.cache and Dragoon set a blistering pace that my aching muscles couldn’t keep up with. In fact, Funky and RAYAR were now pulling away from Cache Jordan and myself who were bringing up the rear. I always thought the return part of any trip seemed faster but after walking forever, the distant shore just kept getting more distant. Pretty soon the first group were no more than little dots against the white background. The second group had pulled away by about 800 meters while CJ and I were convinced that somebody kept moving the home shore further away as a cruel joke. Ironically the last step I took off the ice was a foot soaker- just to add to the experience!
I have found in my few years in this sport that there is a special camaraderie among fellow geocachers that is unparalleled and today was the best example of this. It started with FarsideX lending me his top of the line snowshoes and ended with Ma & Pa whom I finally got to meet. They had a planned event to attend to this afternoon, but stayed home to welcome the 6 tired, aching souls into their home and provided trays of cheese, crackers, grapes, most awesome cheesecake, coffee and the best chili. Thanks… it doesn’t get any better than this!

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