Mystery of Captain Kidd’s Pirate Map – GC19Q43

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

This page contains a lot of detail about this cache so if you have not done it, and want to remain surprised, please do not read the rest of this post.

*** END SPOILER ALERT ***

Of all the caches I have done to date (1500+), this was perhaps one of the most memorable and most fun caches to go find. Ron did such an amazing job at putting this together that I just had to do a page up about this cache.

Not having been a fan of puzzles, I heard a lot of people talk about this cache and how much they liked it that both me and the wife (who doesn’t cache much at all) decided that it was one we were going to try and do together.

Decoding the puzzle coordinates was kind of fun and cryptic all at the same time. I loved that the puzzle was not TOO hard but utilized something creative. Very well done.

We printed off all of the maps and brought all of the information with us to the starting set of coordinates in Irishtown Park. Excited, we started on our journey.

Getting from the starting location to the next location was not hard, but for myself, I could not for the life of me figure out what it was I was supposed to be looking for. Then the wife looked at the old dead tree and noticed something and once it was pointed out to me, it was so obvious what we were looking for. We made our way from that old tree to the next spot and then dug out the compass and followed the bearing to the next point. It took a few minutes to find the gold plate but once we did, we moved on quite easily.%0h an amazing job at putting this together that I just had to do a page up about this cache.

Not having been a fan of puzzles, I heard a lot of people talk about this cache and how much they liked it that both me and the wife (who doesn’t cache much at all) decided that it was one we were going to try and do together.

Decoding the puzzle coordinates was kind of fun and cryptic all at the same time. I loved that the puzzle was not TOO hard but utilized something creative. Very well done.

We printed off all of the maps and brought all of the information with us to the starting set of coordinates in Irishtown Park. Excited, we started on our journey.

Getting from the starting location to the next location was not hard, but for myself, I could not for the life of me figure out what it was I was supposed to be looking for. Then the wife looked at the old dead tree and noticed something and once it was pointed out to me, it was so obvious what we were looking for. We made our way from that old tree to the next spot and then dug out the compass and followed the bearing to the next point. It took a few minutes to find the gold plate but once we did, we moved on quite easily.

We bushwhacked our way to the next point on the other side of the park after crossing the tiny little wood bridge and made our way to the second last point on the map. When we decoded what we thought the clue gave us, we tried to climb the hill and find the final location but no matter where we went, we had no luck finding the treasure. Eventually, we decided to try and do it another day.

Now, as I recall, my biggest problem I had in finding the final had to do with the checksum being off somehow. After an email or two with the cache owner, I figured out what I had done wrong and got the right set of coordinates. I now knew where we would be going. The wife insisted that I was not allowed to claim a find unless she was with me so on a lunch hour, I went down to the park and made my way to where I thought the cache was and sure enough, I did find it, but I did not open it up or move anything. I would wait until later to claim the find.

As soon as we had the chance, myself, the wife, and my little son Dylan went out to the park to claim our find. We dug out the cache, opened it up, did a bit of trading, signed the log, and put it back where we found it.

All in all, this was absolutely the best cache we have done. With all of the maps, props, signs, and other pieces put together for this series, it is plain to see that Ron did a lot of work to try and get this to be as much fun