Geocachers Care – Worldwide Well Wishes for Japanese Geocachers

Sendai Airport before and after (courtesy: "Smell the Roses")

Worldwide well wishes pour in for Japanese geocachers caught in the chain reaction tragedy: a 9.0 earthquake, followed by a tsunami and then a nuclear disaster.

A Japanese geocaching family, tmiya, is located near the flood ravaged epicenter of the deadly March 11th earthquake. Tmiya, a married couple with two daughters, live in Miyagi, Japan. The geocachers placed GC2173Z “Underbody of a jet plane” in 2009.

The traditional geocache was hidden in the port city of Sendai. Eleven geocachers logged a smiley on the difficulty 1.5, terrain 1 geocache before a wall of blackened water scoured the coastal landscape.

Location of GC2173Z

The cache page for GC2173Z now has more than 130 notes. Most are well wishes from the global geocaching community. The notes read: “May you and your family have much strength during these tough times for you” and “Our thoughts and prayers are with you in this terrible time. I have found a lot to admire about the Japanese people.”

They are posted from countries around the world such as Germany, the U.K., Canada, France, the United States of America, the Czech Republic and from inside Japan itself. One note from a French geocacher is simply signed, “Fraternité Geocaching” or the “Fraternity of Geocaching.”

This fraternity united in their compassion for a family most will never meet. Perhaps the most endearing post came just three days ago. Japanese geocacher strikeeagl wrote: “We were Tokyo geocaching community confirmed a cache owner tmiya and his family both alive in safe.” Another note posted more recently reads, “We could confirm that he is fine 5 days after the earthquake… I would appreciate you if you could encourage him.”

Join the geocaching fraternity and post your own note of encouragement to tmiya and the Japanese geocaching community on the cache page.