My grandfather died recently and I had to systematically go
through all of his things. In his safe deposit box at the bank, I
found a small scrap of paper with geographic coordinates and a name
"Old Sailor's Treasure". I remember when I was growing up that my
grandfather used to tell me a story that his grandfather (Stanley)
had told him about his younger days. There was something in it
about a sailor hiding his treasure one night when they had docked
their boat along the Mississippi River. I had always thought this
story a fantasy, but now with the coordinates in my hand, I began
to have second thoughts.
I don't remember much of the story, just pieces here and there.
My grandfather said that Stanley had only been a boy of 8 the night
the adventure took place. He was asked to come along with the
sailor, just to guard the boat at the dock. Instead, he followed
the man at a distance out of curiosity. The sailor first stopped
amid some trees at a silver mast beneath a golden star. The sailor
then traveled a distance before planting a golden coin near buried
anchor, and then took off in a new direction. After some time,
Stanley witnessed a bright flash of red where the sailor laid down
on the ground and looked up to the stars for guidance. The sailor
then got up, and took off on the last leg of the journey, where he
finally stopped before two eyes of sapphire blue. There he hid his
treasure next to eyes that would watch over it eternally. Stanley
ran back to the boat and made it there just in time to leave the
sailor with the impression that he had been there the whole time.
Although just a young boy, he had the sense to memorize where he
was in case he would ever want to return one day.
Now I don't know if this story is entirely true or if it was
just some game that my grandfather made up. Unfortunately, I don't
have the time to travel to the Mississippi and go on this possible
wild goose chase looking for a treasure. However, I thought that
maybe someone in the geocaching world would be interested in this
kind of thing. Afterall, aren't you the kind of people that make a
hobby of looking for needles in haystacks, so to speak? Good luck,
and let me know what you find, if anything.
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A few requests:
- Please place the cache back where you found it. Hints (wether
in the description of friend lifelines) only work if the cache is
in its original location.
- Every effort has been made for accurate coordinates, but as we
all know sometimes factors beyond the our control can throw things
off. If you find that the coordinates are off by an unreasonable
amount (the margin of error/accuracy for your GPSr), please post
your find coordinates in your log as a waypoint. If a trend emerges
I will gladly update the coordinates.
- Please do not post any spoilers in your log that will give away
either the location or the fun of the cache. If you really want to
post something in your log that might cross the line, please take
advantage of the ability to encrypt that portion of your log.
- If the log is full, or the cache needs attention please include
that information in your log.
- If you made a good faith search, and came up empty please post
a DNF log, or contact me - it is possible that the cache is
missing, and this is the only way that I can know.
- Have fun
- Please feel free to rate my cache using
GCVote (an add-on for Firefox) - Details
can be found via this
link.
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