THE CACHE IS NOT FOUND AT THE POSTED COORDINATES. SOLVE THE MYSTERY
TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE.
PRESS RELEASE - March 24, 2006: More havoc has come to the sport
of geocaching in this sordid tale.
Last week, six geocachers were participating in one of the
newest geocaching games, the Bearded Dragon, Crooked-tail Geocoin
Challenge when fate struck. The two teams of UtahJean, Cach-U-Nuts,
and Fire Elemental verses AimHigh!, Chili Tepin, and Scout Master
boarded two canoes at midnight on a misty, bone-chilling night and
cast off from the shores of the Great Salt Lake around Antelope
Island. However, neither team was aware of the other, having set
out on the Lake at different points from the shore.
Their quest was to locate the 72nd stage of the Bearded Dragon,
Crooked-tail Geocoin Challenge: a rusty bucket five miles out in
about 30 feet of water. The fog rolled in and the waves began to
surge in their canoes, but the six driven cachers plugged on.
Ironically, both of the crafts arrived at the posted coordinates
about the same time, and then a heated exchange of words ensued as
to who could lay claim to the rusty bucket for the Bearded Dragon,
Crooked-tail Geocoin Challenge. In the midst of these exchanges,
they saw a lighted rickety raft emerge from the fog, with a merry
captain at the helm singing:
“Sea feliz, sea feliz,
los tesoros son mios, solo mios,
me jubilare en Beliz!”
It was obvious that the man was trying to pull something up with
a chain, and AimHigh!, having received language training in the
military in 32 different languages, dialects, and ancient chants,
worked as interpreter between the group. The man first claimed that
he was trying to haul in a large tuna, but it became obvious that
he was concealing something. Chili Tepin then volunteered to board
the craft, saying that his physical strength would be essential in
helping the poor man bring in his fish.
Taking no chances of unsavory activity by the other team, Fire
Elemental hopped over to the man’s raft to supervise the haul. The
captain repeatedly waved off their help, but Chili Tepin was set on
pulling up the unseen object. When it finally surfaced, it turned
out to be a well-sealed metal box. Wasting no time, Cach-U-Nuts
leaped over to the already-laden raft with his crowbar and forced
the box open. To everyone’s surprise, the box only held some sort
of map and cipher inside a bottle. At that point, Scout Master
didn’t want to be left out of the fray and jumped over to the
captain’s boat. The boat shifted and everyone fell screaming into
the murky waters.
Everything went black . . .
Fortunately, another cacher named kimbest emerged from the fog
in his 50-foot boat and reeled in every last cacher, but the
captain of the raft was nowhere to be seen. Furthermore, all the
cachers started blaming each other for having lost the treasure map
in the bottle. With a smirk on her face, UtahJean pulled out the
bottle and revealed map. However, so much of the map was soaked and
torn that it appeared impossible to restore and too jumbled to
understand. Now, it’s your turn to crack the mystery. Here are the
remains of the map:
Personally, it took me a week to solve the mystery, and I can
tell you that the hike will take you to some beautiful views, but
it could take you 2-4 hours round trip to retrieve you portion of
the treasure. This is a NO TRADE REQUIRED cache, so there is no
need to leave any items in the container. When I left the spot, it
contained six collections of US pennies, each with the following
contents: an Indian head cent from the 1900-1909 era, one from the
1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. You can take one entire
collection of six pennies, and each set is in an individual ziplock
bag. If the money doesn't interest you, then there was also an
unactivated TB (FTF reward) and two survival whistles.
Because there are only a limited number of prizes, please take
one item for your visit even if there are several cachers in your
group. Please indicate what you took, but don’t reveal any specific
details about your solving the puzzle or your hike to the cache so
everything remains a mystery. Once the treasure is gone, this will
become a log-only cache.
Because everything from beginning to end is designed to be a
mystery, I will not confirm coordinates for this one.