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GC8349

Traditional CacheDiamond Knot Treasure

A cache by nrobin     Hidden: 8/22/2002

Size: Size: Regular (Regular)     Difficulty: 4 out of 5     Terrain: 2 out of 5 (1 is easiest, 5 is hardest)


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N/S ? ??.??? W/E ??? ??.??? 
In Washington, United States

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Going on 7 years, this is a land based cache that starts from co-ordinates at sea but you don't have to get wet! Use your GPS in a different way...

First, let me tell you a story. Back in August 1947 there was a ship wreck in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was a foggy night and the cargo ship, "Diamond Knot" was rammed by another ship. The Diamond Knot was returning from Alaska with a huge cargo of canned salmon. By the next morning the ship sank and is resting, silently, in 130 feet of water just off shore from Tongue Point at the above coordinates.

Serious recreational SCUBA divers consider this to be the best wreck dive in Washington and Oregon. Ask any serious diver if he's heard of the Diamond Knot. The photo shows the last hours of the ship. More on the ship can be found here




This is all a true story. Now let's embellish it a little to make it interesting to geocachers.......

Captain Onemartini was skipper of the Diamond Knot and he recorded that his ship went down 0.40 miles from the Tongue Point reference monument which is a famous surveying point for the International boundary with Canada. He had a bearing of 127 degrees Magnetic to that shore monument. He used his sextant as a Pelorus and determined this from sightings of fixed points onshore, then plotted the results on his chart.

He claimed he had hidden some of his personal posessions along with his valued gin on the grounds of Camp Hayden. Your first task is to find the monument as its the starting point for your search. It will be a stone pyramid that is close to the shore line with a plaque on the seaward side. This is an easy task with your GPS and the information given so far.

He mentioned that he had come across an old fire hydrant by walking from the monument in a direction of 147 degrees Magnetic for a distance of 0.185 miles. He rested, drank a little more gin and then took off in another direction but his memory was fading a little by this time because of gin poisoning, i.e., he was drunk! He did remember that the number of bolts holding the hydrant to the stand pipe, M was related to his next heading. Finally, after thinking about it he remembered the formula: Magnetic heading in degrees = 6.8 * M. He did remember that the distance to the cache from the hydrant was 688 feet.

Your heading to the cache while standing 40 feet North of the hydrant will be? (This spot was picked to get good GPS readings).

By now you should be getting closer. You're looking for a plastic one pint pill bottle hidden out of direct view. It contains South Pacific coins & odds and ends plus a log.

Captain Onemartini didn't have GPS in those days. In his time, the normal approach was to solve this with compass and pacing off the steps taken. A difficult and inaccurate method in this terrain. A better method is to put your GPS to work if you know how. It will be much much easier. That's where you come in.

Comments:

  • All bearings are Magnetic. If you use TRUE headings, deviation is East 19°.
  • Units are statute miles and feet. 1 mile = 5,280 feet.
  • GPS coverage will be problematic in spots...you need to work around this and use judgement when needed. This is particularly true in the growing season with leaves on the trees.
  • A Compass gives an immediate sense of direction and helps alot.
  • This cache is intended to force you to think about using your GPS in different ways and show off the sights of Salt Creek, Camp Hayden and Tongue Point. The operators manual can help you in projecting waypoints.
  • Enjoy your visit. This is one of my favorite coastal areas besides Cape Alava.

You'll notice the past military presence here as this was an important coastal defense post at one time.

This is not an easy cache but don't give up. Plenty of chances to make a calculation error. Send me an email for more clues if you need them plus some pictures. The hint has helped alot of people.

This is a good safe family cache that can be enjoyed along with a picnic on a lazy afternoon. Have fun!

 


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Inventory Inventory

There are no Travel Bugs in this cache.
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What is a Travel Bug?

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)

8 srrg Rnfg bs jvgarff(Decrypted Hints)

Find...

Spoiler: Fire hydrant location

The hydrant is hidden within uncleared growth. Match this image and you will see it behind the tree.
Hydrant

This is the hydrant your looking for. Any other will lead you astray. Base blocked out to conceal bolts.
The monument

Plaque on seaward side

Logged Visits (66 total. Visit the Gallery (9 images))

Found it39     Didn't find it13     Write note6     Archive1     Post Reviewer Note1     Temporarily Disable Listing1     Enable Listing1     Owner Maintenance4     

Warning. Spoilers may be included in the descriptions or links.
Cache find counts are based on the last time the page generated.

 August 26, 2009 by ltldodger (183 found)
Wow, what a fun cache. Had to use my GPS and Map Source to get to the cache. Left sand dollar. Noticed many pieces of old barbed wire in area, use caution.

View This Log
 August 3, 2009 by Lee Ofsted (245 found)
Found the fire hydrant...thought we found the witness...certainly found lots of nettles...but no luck finding the cache. However, thanks to TW's husband we got to use a classic compass. Will try again next time!

View This Log
 July 12, 2009 by nrobin (50 found)
Made a long visit to the cache today and checked all the bearings and distances. The bearing from the hydrant to the cache was in error and I changed the formula to 6.8 * M to gain the final bearing. The distance is verified at 688 feet.

The cache has been restocked and is in good shape. Added many coins from around the world. No travelbug found. A picture of the hydrant location has been added that might help you in finding it but should be considered a spoiler. GPS coverage was difficult particularly on the final leg because of heavy tree cover but you can get the job done if careful. Use the open spots to help zero in on the final location. The "hint" is alive and well. Once you figure it out, you can't miss. Happy Geocaching!

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 July 11, 2009 by scaber (2815 found)
I searched for almost two hours for this cache but only left with a sad DNF. At first I had some difficulty projecting magnetic waypoints instead of true but once I figured that out I easily found the first two points. I went to ground zero and saw stomped paths through the nettles so I thought that I was on the right track. I searched, searched, and searched but could not come up with the cache. Sad face for me.

View This Log
 July 7, 2009 by kawal (46 found)
My 8 year old grandson, Sebastian, and I spent a lot of time on this cache, and it certainly is a clever one! We finally found the hydrant and counted the bolts, which gave us our next bearing, magnetic plus 19 degrees to get true. But setting the GPS to the true bearing and going 708 feet still didn't allow us to find the cache. We also tried closer in, since the last finder mentioned 438 feet, but still no luck.

We figured the bearing was from the hydrant, not 40 feet north of the hydrant, but we still couldn't find it. It would probably help if we understood what the "witness" meant, but we finally had to give up.

Too bad, because this was otherwise such a clever cache. Plus we wanted to retrieve the travel bug and leave another one.

View This Log

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Current Time: 2/9/2010 7:23:59 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) (3:23 AM GMT)
Last Updated: 8/27/2009 6:04:25 PM Pacific Daylight Time (1:04 AM GMT)
Rendered: From Database
Coordinates are in the WGS84 datum


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