Bushwacker's Bonus

Wow, What a quest! I knew I should have tried harder to get this thing when Wadadli had it. I started out the day with an exuberant call from my wife Rosa, of team DaveyRosa. "I have the coords for the stick!" she says "I went out on my lunch hour and got them from Wickham park, you have to go get it!" So off I go after stage 2 of what proves to be a 4 stage adventure, the theme of which is Land, Air, and Sea. I know Alkapukalup, so I was pretty sure the land stage was going to involve some beastly bushwacking. So, I went home to grab my new machete and headed out to the coords, which sure as I feared was in the middle of the biggest, nastiest thicket of Palmetto I have ever seen - not far from the culprits house, it figures!

The machete proved to be worth its weight in gold, as stage 2 provided the coords for the 'Air' stage. The GPS says go north on US-1 and keep going and going and going. Finally I was way the heck up near Port St John and there it is, one of those elevated crosswalks that spans US-1. It was just like the one that is 1/10 of a mile from my house that spans A1A. Grrrr! This stage was fairly straight forward a magnet mount key holder which of course yielded the 'Sea' stage coords.

Well, I had made more progress than I anticipated in one day so I was not at all prepared for any Sea work. No swim trunks etc, but the coords were on the way back home so I figured I would at least scout it out. The coords led me to a sunken boat right off the shore of the Pineda causeway in the Banana River. I waded out just shy of knee deep and quickly realized that a wetsuit and a mask might be helpful. So, I ran home to grab the equipment. I debated whether I would have enough sunlight to finish but I decided to give it a try. I spotted a long PVC cylinder tied to the stern and weighted down with bricks in about 3 feet of water.
So, finally I had the prize, well... sort of. What I had was a PVC pipe that was glued shut on both ends, which I assumed had the prize in it but I wouldn't know until I got home to
use my hacksaw. On the way home I had an idea borne of laziness and stopped at the neighborhood hardware store and asked them to lop off the end for me. Finally I had the
stick and some strange looks from the hardware guys, but at that point I was too tired to care. AWESOME hide Alkapukalup! It will be an extremely tough act to follow.

Dave

“Bushwack” Pronunciation: (boosh'hwak", -wak"), to make one's way through woods by cutting at undergrowth, branches, etc.

I have held onto this stiCk long enough and my plans are just aboUt doNe and I am looking forward to seeing who will complete my challenge and claim this stick. I thoUght long and hard and decided having geocachers bushwhacking through the woods just would not “cut” it. So in order to find the stick a geocacheRs will have to bushwhack not only on land, but air and water too… So here is how it will work. Keep an eYe on this page and over the next couple of days I will reveAl the cache that wiLl contain the coordinates to the first leg of the challenge. The cacher who finds this location will find a second set of coordiNates that will lead them to a locaTion that someone suffering from AcrophoBia would have a hard time reaching. This is where the last set of coordinates will be and they will lead one to the stick. But be warned, don’t be weAring your good shoes, they might get wet, very wet…..

[This entry was edited by alkapukalup on Thursday, December 15, 2005 at 10:28:15 AM.]

After finding the ransom note last week, I was very excited to finally get my hands on the stick!! The note consisted of a phone number, a ransom demand, and a threat not to tell anyone about the steps involved to claim the stick, before the exchange actually occurred. Rill Poet demanded $10,000 in unmarked bills in exchange for the stick. The bills had to be unmarked, not consecutive serial number and of course Monopoly money. I did have trouble gathering such a large sum of money and actually scanned some of the bills; luckily Rill was no more the wiser.

Once I had the money, I was to call the number and a time and place would be given for the exchange. GPS in hand I ventured to the coordinates which led me to the public library in Cocoa. On the front door steps I called the number again and was give and book title to look up. When I arrived at the shelf in the library, I heard a static like sound and my name (or at least someone trying to pronounce my name). Behind the book was a walkie talkie (and a cheap one at that) and I was then given instructions to go outside and place the money in the scrubs in the back of middle island. After doing this I was told to look about 10 feet away and there was the stick!!! So the stick is safe and sound and I am looking forward to adding something to it.

Thanks for the adventure Rill!!!!

Guys, it seems as though Rill is being stubborn. Please don't feed into his games until he decides to play nice. He will pass the stick on eventually. 😎

There will be no ransom games played with the bushwacker bonus. Rill Poet's threats have been deleted.