The people who earn the Geocacher of the Month title are not superheroes in the traditional sense: instead of the power of flight, they possess the power to transform a park bench into a treasure chest; instead of teaching the baddies how to be good, they teach newbies good geocaching etiquette; instead of stopping monsters from tearing down the city, they stop decaying geocaches from being archived.
There’s a new geocaching superhero in town.
Congratulations seastar255!
Seastar255 is the kind of geocaching team we’d like to clone and have living in every city where geocaching happens on Earth. That sounds extreme…until you hear about their contributions to the Space Coast of Florida Geocaching community.
Not only are seastar255 co-founders of the Space Coast Geocachers Association, you can also thank them—and the attendees of their CITO events—for some unusually clean Florida beaches. Their many CITO events are well-known in the south Florica area.
We spoke to Mr. seastar255 and heard from him in his own words.
Tell us about how and why you first began geocaching?
“With my wife working most Saturdays, I found myself and my daughter (Young Money Girl) (8 at the time) sitting on the sofa, watching tv, and eating bags and bags of chips. I knew this wasn’t right and there must be something out there for us to do and magically, the very next day there was an article in our local paper about Geocaching. This sounded just like the very thing we needed. I ordered our first GPS (Magellan explorist 100) and waited for it to arrive. Once it came, we manually punched in the nearest cache (about .3 miles away) and set out. The cache was an underwater cache you had to find the string and pull it up. The cache itself was trashed from water intrusion but I will never forget that feeling of our first find. As cliché as it sounds, we were hook ever since. My daughter has been my caching partner for this whole time and I feel lost the times I am on the hunt without her. When we come upon an exceptionally evil hide, mom gets involves as our secrete weapon. We would occasionally get our son involved but it would cost me in some ways and that’s how he got his name, rent-a-kid.”
12 years later…why do you still geocache?
“The game has changed a lot over the years but one thing has not and that is that feeling you get when you make the find….that feeling never gets old. The camaraderie. We have met so many people over the years and made so many friends for life and have stepped outside our comfort zone by trying things we would never have tried if it weren’t for Geocaching (kayaking, day and night caching in a swamp, climbing trees, camping).”
Can you tell us more about your CITO events?
“As you can see by our profiles, CITO is a very important part of our Geocaching philosophy. It is just as important to give back our communities that either knowingly or unknowing support our hobby. The space coast geocachers is a very tight knit community and we all share this commitment to our communities. The SCGA tries to hold a CITO event every month but sometimes, life does get in the way. I wanted my daughter to understand this feeling, so she is equally involved. We started our mega CITO day during the 2012 international CITO day. That year we had 4 clean-up events and 2 meet and greet food events. After that amazing day, we sat down over dinner and wondered how to make it better. So we did what every genius does, we grabbed a table napkin and jotted down our plans for the next year, 7 clean up events and two meet and greets. And we have been doing that ever since.”
Anything else you’d like to say to the Geocaching community?
“Let’s boil this hobby down to its core value, it is all about having fun. And as long as people are having fun, Geocaching will continue to grow. As long as we all understand different folks interpret fun in different ways. Patience, tolerance, and acceptance are all qualities I have learned from ‘playing‘ this game.”
One Geocacher of the Month winner is selected from a list of nominees each month.
If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be considered for the honor, simply fill out this webform. You’ll need to include the following information:
- Your name, the name of your nominee, their username
- Description (200 or more words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Featured Geocacher of the Month. These descriptions can be written in any language.
Please inform your nominee that you have submitted them for the award.
