Anclote #4 - Perrine Ranch
This area was the former Perrine Ranch, now owned by luxury home
builder Mark Maconi. Look close and you can still see many of the
old ranch structures on the land around his McMansion. The original
cache location was in a hollow of the overhanging tree a few feet
away, but after a re-visit I spotted a large snake skin from a pit
viper that had been sharing the space, so I thought it best to move
the cache.
After a lot of trial and error, I’m finally ready to
publish this series of caches along the Anclote River. They can
only be accessed via canoe, kayak or small boat and should provide
quite a challenge since the river takes many different paths in
some sections. Total round trip will be about 8 miles. Public
access to the upper section of the river is sparse, and that hassle
has kept a lot of folks from enjoying its natural beauty.
Hopefully, you will get enough smileys to offset the extra effort.
The fact that the river floods almost every year presented some
special challenges, but I think I’ve got them solved. All of
the containers have O-rings, are tie-wrapped to branches, etc. and
have passed through a flood season already, remaining completely
submerged for days without issue. However, it is important that you
close the container properly to ensure it’s survival. All but
two of the caches can be accessed without leaving your watercraft,
so there is no need to trespass on private property or preserve
areas.
As I said before, the river floods almost every year, so please
check this
site and make sure that the flood level does not exceed 13ft.
on the day you plan to visit (else the cache may be underwater). I
don’t like cache series that include parking cords with every
single cache, cluttering my GPSr, so I will include some possible
launch sites with the first cache in the series only.
Now the Disclaimer Stuff:
- If you are lucky, you will see some birds, otters, turtles and
other small critters.
- If you are REAL lucky, you will see an alligator, manatee or
snake.
- By far the biggest danger you may encounter are ants &
stinging insects...so relax and enjoy.
- As always, use common sense when on the river and retrieving
caches. If you plow through low hanging branches, there may be
spider webs, wasps nests, etc.