Fortune seekers and treasure hunters are combing the countryside in search of . . . well trinkets. If nothing else, it gets couch potatoes off their behinds and proves that the thrill is in the chase, not the find.
By SHERYL KAY
Published October 31, 2003
LUTZ - Noah's Ark, the Holy Grail, and the two original tablets of the Ten Commandments elude the most seasoned treasure hunters.
But fortune seekers can take heart in knowing there's a sport that will lead them to a trove of smaller, less famous, yet very real treasures at parks all over north Tampa and beyond.
It's the perfect combination of Indiana Jones and high technology, and it's called Geocaching (pronounced geeoh-cashing).
By accessing the web site www.geocaching.com anyone can enter a zip code and find the longitude and latitude coordinates of small "treasures," or caches planted by other participants. There are players in all 50 states, and more than 100 countries.
Treasure hunters enter the coordinates into a handheld Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS), which points them on their way. The object is to locate the cache and log the find. There is no charge to play, other than the costs of purchasing the GPS, and going out on the search.
Caches are generally plastic containers placed on public property (or with permission, on private property) and usually partly covered with vegetation. The contents are thematic, representing sports, foreign countries, or music, for example, with little trinkets for the treasure hunters to take. In exchange, playersleave items behind. The loot has included books, software, CD's, pictures, money, jewelry, toys, tools, and games. There's also a log book for the treasure hunter's name, and any messages.
"I enjoy the outdoors, but I'd never be sitting on the couch on a Saturday saying, "lets go to Starkey Nature Path, and walk the trails,' " said T.J. Couch, 31, of Lake Magdalene. "But knowing there's an adventure outside there, I'd walk through waist deep swamp water and hike through searing heat just to find a box of trinkets."
Couch, 31, the IMAX operations manager for the Museum of Science and Industry, has been geocaching for the past 18 months, and has found 150 caches. He's also planted five of his own. About 30 of his finds were in northern Hillsborough, although he has logged items as far away as Michigan.
"Exploration, coupled with technology, is appealing to people's sense of discovery, which people have expressed in all kinds of ways throughout the millennia," he said. "For me, playing with electronic gadgets has always been fascinating, so playing with the GPS is just a natural fit."
At the tender age of 2, Rebekah Clark of Lutz is also fascinated with small electronic objects.
"She'll pick up any electronic device, like a TV remote, point it out ahead, and say, "no mommy, it's that way,"' said her mother, Erin Clark. "She's seen us do it so many times with the GPS; she thinks she's doing it too."
Also an avid geocacher, Clark said it has been a great family activity. The hunts often take her and her two daughters to parks and trails that she may never have otherwise discovered.
This summer, the Clarks were in Washington, D.C. for vacation, and found several interesting caches, including a virtual cache (which involves finding an existing landmark) of a statue of Albert Einstein.
"I grew up in Virginia, and I had been to D.C. several times and saw all the monuments, went to all the Smithsonians," she said. "But that one statue was way off the beaten path and I had never seen it before."
Clark's enthusiasm spilled over to her brother John Lockhart, 41, of Lutz, just over a year ago. Also eager to discover new public parks and sites, Lockhart has ventured out even further to find more demanding, challenging caches. Each cache on the Web site is rated by difficulty based on the terrain and the location of the actual cache.
"I did a mountain bike multi-cache that took me about two hours, and it was quite the workout in that sugar sand, up and down hills, over roots that are 18 inches high," said Lockhart, a restaurant owner. "It was very hard because the coordinates looked like we're really close, but you get all turned around in those big palmetto forests.
"It was exciting for him to be out on the edge," he said, although he did have a sense of comfort in having his cell phone with him. "It's like a great adventure but it's safe. It appeals to my hunter instinct, but it's also like the feeling you get when you finish a really hard crossword puzzle."
