Caches No’s 2069 to 2086 – A Jacaru Puzzle Cache Day

A Jacaru Puzzle Cache Day ?
A few weeks ago I generated a PQ of unfound puzzle caches, and the fourth nearest where I live was Jacaru’s five star puzzle GC3QPR1 – Kryptos, which I solved and got the FTF on when I was driving home from Birmingham airport after returning from holiday (I live a two hour drive from Nottingham)
After that I thought I had better solve the companion cache GC3PRH2 – Cryptonomicon, the pair of which would lead to The Safe cache.I then thought if I am going to go to Nottingham again to pick up two caches I may as well make a day of it and find Jacaru’s other puzzle caches – and so the idea of a Jacaru Puzzle Cache Day was born… 15 caches, 13 puzzles, a chirp cache and a cache that requires a key on a TB

It took me a fortnight to solve all the puzzles, (with a little help from a Notts cacher – ‘Two Anchors’, who was feeding me snippets of information when I was struggling, in return for me basically saying ‘No, it’s not that’ to every question he asked about solving Kryptos !) Then one of the TB Keys for 1C3K appeared in a cache just a few miles from home, so I went out and grabbed that ready for my trip.

Planning the day took a little time as although 15 caches is not that many the caches are spread out across quite an area and not being a local I needed Google Satellite view and Street View to sort out routes between the caches and where the best car parking could be found for each cache.

5th October 2012 – Secret Santa GC2K580 – cache #2069
I set off from home early(ish) in the morning and arrived at my first stop at 10:30am… and didn’t find GC2MT9X – Values
The first of my Jacaru Puzzle Cache Day… And I started off with a DNF… despite Phone-A-Friend and Text-The-Owner there was no sign of the cache

So I went on a bit further to this drive by cache – though it was a bit muddy walking down the old road from the indicated car parking place. I didn’t really find this ‘cache’ either, I found a number of ‘swag’ items spread around the area, which I collected together and left behind the tree… couldn’t find a log book, but now I know that’s because it had been removed the day before (and the cache was archived before I had chance to log it but I’m still going to claim it as a find !)

5th October 2012 – Written In The Stars GC3B2KE – cache #2070
The second of my Jacaru Puzzles and an easy find… well it would have been if I hadn’t slipped over and got all muddy… still, that’s why I have wet wipes and hand sanitiser gel in the car !

5th October 2012 – Cache in hand GC2YH3D – cache #2071
Not a Jacaru puzzle, but another puzzle cache that my route passed. This was a frustrating little puzzle to crack… I kept looking at it, then searching the internet for clues… then looking at it, then searching the internet for clues…
Even when I had worked out the way to decipher the numbers from the card I still took ages working out how to get them all in the right order, I seemed to end up with one number too many !
In the end I tried the most likely numbers in the Geochecker and got a green tick.
So I went to the cache site… and realised when I got there that there were hundreds of possible hiding places and I had forgotten to write down the clue – but I remembered I had added it to the Personal Cache Notes on the cache page… so I got out my phone and logged on to GC.com, got the clue, and found the cache.

5th October 2012 – Cache and Dash GC2YH80 – cache #2072
A quick drive by cache… though the road was particularly busy and parking is only just off the road… I needed to wait for the nearby traffic lights to change to give me a gap before I could open the door and get out !

5th October 2012 – Moor’s Knot GC2N8KH – cache #2073
The third of my Jacaru Puzzles was the longest walk I had to make from the road to the cache site. It was a nice, if slightly muddy walk to the cache – which was pretty easy to find when I got to the co-ordinates… The Moor’s Knot is a puzzle which works on numbers which give the paeg, line and word from a particular book – in this case The DaVinci Code… I did have to make a 25p purchase from the charity shop to solve it !

5th October 2012 – Call of Duty 4 GC1ZRF6 – cache #2074
A relatively quick, almost drive-by cache – well walk-by cache as it was between the car and Moors Knot !

5th October 2012 – FN ~ The History Boys GC3PJGE – cache #2075
The fourth of my Jacaru Puzzles. I had difficulty getting to the right place to park… the road was incredibly busy (is it like this every lunchtime or was it just people avoiding the roadworks on the main road ?)… but the coordinates were spot on so it was an easy cache to find

5th October 2012 – Cryptonomicon GC3PRH2 – cache #2076
The fifth of my Jacaru Puzzles. I started on this puzzle as soon as I had solved Kryptos, but only got a few bits of the puzzle sorted before I went on holiday. I took the book of the same name by Neal Stephenson book with me to Gran Canaria in hope that it would provide me with clues or at least inspiration – but it did neither.
In the end it took a nudge from the FTF’er to point me in the right direction, but even then I couldn’t sort out the final co-ordinates and had to resort to brute force on the Geochecker to tie down the actual numbers.
Finding the cache was relatively easy, I know some people have had difficulty tracking it down, but I went straight to it… and then found I had not written down the key to open the lock… so I had to get out my phone, log onto GC.com and check the picture again (It’s down to caching that I can now translate Egyptian heiroglyphics in my head !)

5th October 2012 – Conundrum GC3X1MV – cache #2077
The sixth of my Jacaru Puzzles, this was a relatively new cache which I solved straight away when it was published. It took me a while to work out how to get to this particular point on the map (not being a local I was trying to work it out from Google satellite view !) so I was happy to get there in the end without getting my route blocked by any fences !

5th October 2012 – Bridge over the River Trent GCW55E – cache #2078
A relatively short detour on the way back from Conundrum… I was a bit concerned that this cache may have been washed away in all the rain, but I found it safe and sound…
You can’t actually see the bridge from the cache though perhaps if it was in a place where the bridge was visible it would have got washed away !

5th October 2012 – Values ~ The Next Generation GC3BJ73 – cache #2079
The eighth of my Jacaru Puzzles, and I have to thank Jacaru for going out on the morning of my visit to replace this cache – especially so I could find it
The puzzle was quite easy to solve, having seen others similar in my own neck of the woods, so I had the co-ordinates for the feeder, but could I find it anywhere ? – No 🙁
I resorted to the Text-A-Friend route (thanks Plasmawave !), who told me the suprising direction in which to look, and I soon had the feeder and the co-ordinates for the final… which I decided to drive to rather than walk to – it’s not far away, but I was pushed for time as I still had several more caches to find, at least that’s my excuse !
At least you could see the bridge from this cache (though this picture was taken from the other side)

5th October 2012 – The Last Foot GC3QDKD – cache #2080
The eigth of my Jacaru Puzzles. I think I annoyed the driver behind me when I suddenly signaled and veered off the road at the nearest spot to this cache. Having solved the puzzle I understood the hint and quickly found the cache hidden in the obvious place. I did get a big help with solving the puzzle from the FTF’er who told me something to google to point me in the right direction

5th October 2012 – FN ~ Gladiator GC3PC5B – cache #2081
The ninth of my Jacaru Puzzles. A quickly solved puzzle and good use of Google street view gave me the co-ordinates and a spot to park near the cache, which was easily found as there was something that looked supiciously like cache camouflage at the GZ. I actually watched the film the evening before my visit, I’d forgotten how enjoyable it is.

5th October 2012 – Top Of The Pops GC2MKKA – cache #2082
The tenth of my Jacaru Puzzles was a list of pop songs and it’s perhaps an indication of my age that I could sing the choruses of all the songs recorded before 1990 so knew half the answers off the top of my head, but have no idea of what any of the newer songs sound like and had to google for them all. I soon had a set of numbers, which made no sense to me, and no matter how hard I tried to rearrange them I couldn’t get any meaningful co-ordinates… then the penny dropped !
The cache itself was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and as I was short of time I resorted to the Text-A-Friend mode again… which wasn’t very useful as the answer came back that it was hidden in a place I had already looked… which I already knew it wasn’t…
So I carried on my search and eventually found the cache over 30ft away and hidden in a totally different manner… But I did find it

5th October 2012 – FN ~ The Mummy GC3PFZ6 – cache #2083
The eleventh of my Jacaru Puzzles. I’ve done enough puzzle caches by now to have an internet bookmark for heiroglyphic translation, so the puzzle was quickly solved, the cache was quickly found too, when I arrived at GZ I looked round and straight away spotted it peeking out of it’s hiding place

5th October 2012 – FN ~ Rock Of Ages GC3P5DH – cache #2084
The twelfth of my Jacaru Puzzles. I quickly got the idea of how to solve the puzzle, and a bit of googling got some coordinates.
As always under trees the GPS signal is pretty rubbish and I was having trouble locating the cache… so I tried the Text-A-Friend route again, but by the time I got an answer I had already found the cache !
After that I did find the thirteenth of my Jacaru Puzzles – GC3W6M2 1C3K but couldn’t open it so it wasn’t a DNF because I did find the cache and not a FTF because I couldn’t open the cache and sign the log, and that wasn’t because the key I had didn’t fit the lock – mainly it was because because I got 90 minutes drive from home and realised I had left the blooming key on my desk !

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5th October 2012 – The Safe GC3RTZJ – cache #2085
The fourteenth of my Jacaru Puzzles. This should have been my last cache, but after getting the coordinates for the chirp cache it became obvious that the sensible thing to do was visit this cache first. I had been sent the co-ordinates for The Safe after I found Kryptos and had arranged to meet Jacaru at the cache to collect the Geocoins that were the prize for Kryptos. Finding the cache was not too hard… finding a working pen with which to sign the log more difficult !
For security reasons I can’t put in a picture of this cache

5th October 2012 – Thomas & Cameron’s Girl Trouble GC3DEJA – cache #2086
The fifteenth and last of my Jacaru Puzzles. I arrived at the GZ with my GPS all ready to pick up the chirp signal, but for technical reasons the final co-ordinates arrived by Text rather than chirp !
It was getting rather dark by the time I got to the GZ and combined with poor GPS reception it made finding this cache rather difficult. In the end I resorted to using my GPS as a rather dim torch to light up potential cache hiding places, and in the last of these I found the cache. (Well it might not have been the last possible potential hiding place, but I didn’t bother looking for any others once I’d found the right one !)

and that was that I’d stopped for ‘Values’ at 10.30am and finished with this cache which I found in the gathering gloom over 8 hours later, of the 15 Jacaru caches I’d set out to find I had one DNF (Values) and one other that I found but couldn’t open (1C3K) – and I’d found five other caches along the way
I’ve got to thank Jacaru for creating all the puzzles, and Two Anchors and Plasmawave for their assistance with solving the puzzles, the planning of the trip and their Phone and Text help on the day

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