On the Boardwalk

It really wasn't the boardwalk, but last Monday I actually went out on a pier to get a virtual cache and get a picture taken for a webcam cache. The virtual was in the middle of the pier near one of the entrances to the amusement park built on the pier. It was a fairly easy virtual because I only had to answer a couple of questions to gain credit for the find. The webcam was a little more difficult. I had a cacher prepped for the picture, but I originally thought I was going to be there before noon, but I was there in the morning when this cacher wasn't available, so I called my son and walked him through the steps. As it turned out, the webcam wasn't broadcasting pictures, so I had to resort to having my picture taken at the right spot to get credit. I was expecting this to happen, since the webcam had been out since Saturday evening. When I got home to log the cache, the webcam was back up and operational. Doesn't that always seem to happen?

The way everything was laid out on the pier, it gave much the same feel of an old fashioned boardwalk, complete with carnival barkers, games of chance and a couple of thrill rides, including a giant Ferris wheel and a rather tame looking rollercoaster. I knew this was going to be there when I came out and tried to get the Tadpole to come along for the ride, but he wasn't interested, so I came alone. Hopefully, he'll come next time I come out this way. I think he would have had a good time.

It's been years since I've been on a pier of any kind. I can remember as a child in the mid 1960s, my parents would take us down to Newport Beach frequently where we'd walk out on the pier and get out over the ocean. I would love to look into the buckets of the fishermen on the pier to see what they'd caught that day. There were other fishermen who'd been out in the ocean who would bring their small boats right up onto the beach and sell their fish directly from their boats. Occasionally, my father would bust out his wallet and we'd have very fresh fish, usually halibut, sometimes swordfish for dinner that evening.

The last pier I was on, was more of a boat dock and it was located on Catalina Island, 24 miles away from Los Angeles. For a couple of years, we had a science camp field trip for our 8th graders where we'd take them over to Catalina Island, away from the touristy places near Avalon and teach them different things about the ocean that you couldn't do in the classroom. The hands on labs with plenty of ocean critters was, for many of my students, the first time they'd encountered many of the creatures in the Pacific Ocean. While on the Santa Monica Pier on Monday, the air was so clear, I could see all the way to Catalina, something that is becoming increasingly difficult to do here, because of ocean clouds (called the marine layer here) that block the view, but also because of the smog the area generates.

The last actual boardwalk I've been on, in fact the only boardwalk I've been on, would be the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I was up in Santa Cruz with a couple of buddies of mine right after we'd graduated from high school. This was our senior trip and we made the most of it, camping in different spots along the coast of California. My friend's sister was attending UC Santa Cruz and so when we got up there, we crashed at her apartment. That evening, we went down to the boardwalk and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the place. One of the highlights of the boardwalk was the Giant Dipper, a large wooden rollercoaster that consistently rates in the top ten of great woodie rides by coaster enthusiasts. I couldn't tell you how many times we rode it that evening, but it definitely makes my top 10 list as well.

The Santa Monica Pier, which I visited this weekend was a much smaller version of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. The Ferris wheel was large, but most of the other rides were scaled down versions of rides that I've seen before. As noted above, the rollercoaster appeared to be quite tame, though I didn't ride it. Had the Tadpole been along, I'm pretty sure we'd have ridden it, but with a couple of helixes and one and a half small drops, I don't think that one will make anyone's major list.

The atmosphere of the place is what I enjoyed. I could constantly hear the waves crash on the beach as I walked around the pier taking in the sights and getting plenty of pictures. The screams of kids as they rode the rides told of their enjoyment, or terror in some cases, of the different rides there. The park was very colorful and noisy, just what I believe one would expect of this kind of amusement park. And yet, there was a quiet side of the pier as well.

The pier extended out quite a ways into the Pacific Ocean and the amusement park is situated close to the entrance to the pier. There is a good portion of the pier that extends beyond the park. There's where the fishermen are, plying their craft. It was a different kind of attitude there. There wasn't any kind of bustle. Fishermen march to their own drummer I suspect and they have this inner calm. I don't have that kind of patience to be a fisherman. Throw that hook in and a fish better start playing with the bait pretty quickly, or I'm going to be bored.

As you can probably guess, I'm more attracted to the glitz of the park as opposed to the other extreme also found on the pier. And yet, I could relate to these people, because I know that I can sit for hours doing things that I enjoy doing, like reading a book, or contemplating a set of photographs. I used to do needlepoint and cross stitching for enjoyment, but can't do that anymore, because a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome gets in the way. So I can understand the appeal of fishing, but it's just not for me.

While I was walking along the end of the pier, I noticed a couple of people pulling in their lines. They appeared to have snagged each other's lines and were trying to get them untangled. As they brought the lines up, I head one gentlemen state, "Man, that was a big sea bass that got away!" Now, I've grown up believing the myth that fishermen tell tall tales and the stories get taller by the day, and yet I still kept wondering to myself how big that fish was. I wished I'd been there a couple of minutes earlier, so I could have seen the size of the fish for myself. I wonder how big that fish has become in the story now that it's been a couple of days?

Pictures were taken at or near the following caches:
Santa Monica Pier - by GeoCraig
Don't Get Sucked In !! - by Splashman

Virtually yours

I have found 67 virtual caches since I started caching back in 2001. Not a lot, but it represents 3.8% of all of my cache finds. Count the couple of Mystery caches which were really virtuals, the one webcam cache that I’ve logged, the earth caches that I’ve found and those pesky locationless caches and some folks would say that about 5% of my cache finds aren’t “real.” And those people would be right, when you consider that you’re supposed to find a cache container when you go out geocaching.

Does that make virtuals non-caches? It seems that Geocaching.com appears to believe it since they don’t allow virtuals to be listed any more. They have allowed ones that were already created to be grandfathered in to the system. The same holds true for webcam caches. I know, because I own the Blue Jay Webcam cache. I don’t own any virtual caches, mainly because I couldn’t find, what I thought was a suitable location for a virtual. And I think there is where the problem lies with virtual caches. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back for this one, but I think if people had been a little bit more discriminating when they set out to create virtual caches, we might still be allowed to post virtual caches today.

The principles of a virtual are pretty simple. Instead of a cache to find, you have to find information. You then email the owner of the virtual with that information before you can log the cache. Sometimes, you have to post a current picture of you at the site which will satisfy the logging requirement. Sometimes you have to do both. Most are educational in some way and many are fun and whimsical.

As I went through the 67 different virtuals that I have logged, I can remember most of them right away. I can remember some of them being very interesting, helping me learn about the history of a given area, or perhaps taking me to a place where a real cache couldn’t be placed because it was either in a National Park, or on private property. Yet those caches still allowed me to play with my GPSr, got me to exercise my brain, and usually helped me learn something. What I also found interesting was the amount of pictures in my gallery that were devoted to virtual caches. Usually virtuals have that “Wow” factor built in that makes you want to grab your camera and take some pictures of that unique and/or beautiful area.

Since I've started caching, I’ve learned about the first Mayor’s house of Atwater, California, walked around Downtown Disney to find 20 – yes you read that right – 20 different waypoints, and seen the gravesite of one of Wyatt Earp’s relatives. I’ve been moved by a memorial to the Space Shuttle Challenger and almost brought to tears by a memorial to the California victims of 9/11. I’ve also hiked a trail in Joshua Tree National Park that I’ve avoided many times in the past because it didn’t look that interesting compared to some of the other spots in the park, and yet when I took that trail last November, my son and I found four virtuals along the trail and learned some interesting history about one of Joshua Tree’s local characters. Each of these I found to be good examples of what virtuals should be.

On the other hand, I can also remember several virtual geocaches where, after I’d gone through the motions of doing the required elements to log the cache, I thought, “Eh, that was ok, but couldn’t he have just placed a micro over here, or perhaps she could have set up an offset using some of the information on the plaque?”

Some of these virtuals I’ve found, were just plain lacking. The information could have been easily transmitted on the cache page and a real cache could have been hidden at the site. One virtual I found was about an oak tree that wasn’t there anymore. All the history of the tree was on the cache page, so why didn’t the hider just hide a cache there and leave the history on the cache page? Another was a shrine to frogs. Now I love frogs probably just as much as the next cacher, maybe even more, but couldn't the person have found a good sized plastic frog and created a cache with it and then placed it at the frog shrine? That might have been quite a tough cache to find. Still another virtual, required you to post a picture in front of a house that had, what can be described as pretty tacky landscaping. This particular house was featured in Steve Martin’s movie “The Jerk.” Yet another virtual looked down upon a movie studio in Hollywood. There were plenty of spots to hide at least a micro in the same general area and still have brought cachers to see the movie studio.

Some of the more questionable virtuals that I’ve listed above, and I’m sure you could probably look over your own list and find some that also fit that bill, are what probably prompted Geocaching.com to place a moratorium on the posting of new virtuals. It’s their website and they have the right to do that. I agree with what they’re trying to do, but I don’t necessarily agree with their methods. I think it would have been better to try and weed out the ones that were more questionable and allow those new ones with the “Wow” factor.

The one spot where I really think they should still allow virtuals is in our National Parks. In general, National Parks are the epitomy of the “Wow” factor. Since the National Park Service won’t allow traditional caches in the parks, virtual caches fit the bill perfectly. But, with the moratorium, they can’t be placed and I believe that’s a shame. As noted above, I would have missed out on some really interesting local history were it not for some geocaching virtuals. I’m sure it’s the same way for others. How easy would it be for Geocaching.com to make that exception regarding virtuals and allow them to be placed in National Parks again? Unless we, as a community speak up, it won’t happen. I’ve written letters and I hope others will as well. I think the early geocaching community didn’t police itself well enough and now we’re paying the price of no new virtuals. That is a shame, because a good virtual is worth its weight in gold in my opinion.

The pictures for this article are from the following virtual caches:
And the Oscar® Goes To...
Simon Rodia's Dream
Wupatki
Challenger Shuttle Memorial
Luv'n Lucy
Bye Bye Blackbird