W
elcome to the
Mosquito Fleet cache.
The ferry system
has its origins in the "Mosquito Fleet", a collection of small
steamer lines serving the Puget Sound area during the later part of
the nineteenth century and early part of the 20th century. By the
beginning of the 1930s, two lines remained: the Puget Sound
Navigation Company (known as the Black Ball Line) and the Kitsap
County Transportation Company. A strike in 1935 forced the KCTC to
close, leaving only the Black Ball Line. Toward the end of the
1940s the Black Ball Line wanted to increase its fares, to
compensate for increased wage demands from the ferry workers'
unions, but the state refused to allow this, and so the Black Ball
Line shut down. In 1951, the state bought substantially all of
Black Ball's ferry assets for $5 million. The state intended to run
ferry service only until cross-sound bridges could be built, but
these were never approved, and the Washington Department of
Transportation runs the system to this day.
And so ends our
quest of the Mosquito Fleet. In order to find this cache you must
find the other six caches in the series:
Mosquito
Fleet #1: Alaskan
Mosquito
Fleet #2: Olympian
Mosquito
Fleet #3: Bailey Gatzert
Mosquito
Fleet #4: Greyhound
Mosquito
Fleet #5: Rosalie
Mosquito
Fleet #6: Flyer
Inside of each
of the six caches will be co-ordinate information needed to find
this cache. Bring paper and pen as you seek the other caches
so you can record the information.
A paper map of the trails can be found
here
or an electronic one for your garmin
here.
Congratulations to geopoppa on FTF!