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# 4 unknown Barge : Coastal Ghosts series Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Olewaif: retrieved this seldom-found cache and had a nice chat with property owner. Time for it to be gone.

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Hidden : 5/10/2011
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Small camoed Pill bottle in an evergreen. Access to this is gained by driving PAST cache to right then parking at public beach access area and walking back up the beach for a quick duck-in from shore to grab cache. You may not go straight in from road as this is private cottage land. It is also possuble that this cache may not be accessible at highest tide times.

Coastal Ghosts Series:
I’ve always been intrigued with tales of the sea; when you grow up on Prince Edward Island, it’s impossible not to hear of the exploits , successes and failures of the mariners of the past.. PEI was first visited by Jacques Cartier on July 1st, 1534 , beginning the connection between sailors and this island which continued over the almost five centuries since that day. Trade, warfare, settlement, and exploitation of the natural waters around PEI have brought tens of thousands of vessels to our waters. Some never left.
The North Atlantic is not a mill pond . Storms did and do still roar up the Northumberland Strait and along the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the age of sail the ships were often more or less at the mercy of the wind and it often took them to their doom.
The coast of PEI alternates between rugged sandstone cliffs and low sand-duned beaches. Vessels came to grief against both. The water around the island is shallow with many offshore sandbars and reefs and a great many of the shipwrecks along this coast are a result of running aground on these. Some got off but many were beaten to pieces by storm waves and loss of life was often heavy. No part of PEI’s coast is free from a share of these disasters, large and small. Over 800 documented shipwrecks have occurred off and on these shores.
In this series I take you on a complete circuit of PEI along the various coastal roads and as best I can, to the nearest land point opposite the described wreck for each cache. Access to the caches varies but mostly you can drive fairly close and the caches are available at all times. There are a few which require a beach stroll and these might only be accessible at lower than high tide. I tried to use the many public access roads, of which there are many. Many of these roads are not open in winter. If you do the entire series you’ll log over 1200 Km.s of road tour and see some parts of PEI that not all that many people ever see. I quite deliberately picked and chose my shipwrecks to maximize the breadth of experience for the geocacher. There’s some very beautiful spots
along this tour and I urge you to explore them well.
If you come on a stormy day perhaps you can imagine the day when the named ship for that place was wrecked.; often right on the cliffs or, at most a mile or two off shore, well within sight of the land where they would have been safe. Most of the shipwrecks in this series resulted in some loss of life, often the dreaded phrase "all hands lost" was used in the reports. A moment of thought about those perished people might be appropriate as you visit the site of their demise.
# 4 unknown barge : besides the known wrecks there are doubtless many other unknown craft that have sunk of our shores.... they would simply been reported as ' lost at sea ' when they did not make their expected port. Barges are cargo vessel( often unmanned ) towed by other ships and it is not uncommon for tow lines to part during storms and the barges to be lost, often never to be located. Some would simply float around until they eventually sank out on the ocean and some, like this one ran aground and wrecked on a shore. PEI has a number of barge wrecks, this one will represent the lot. The most famous barge sinking off out shores was the Irving Whale, which sank off the North shore with its cargo of bunker C oil. Much media attention focused on this potential major pollution source but fortunately the feared major spill did not occur.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Npprff sebz ornpu nsgre nobhg 100 zrgre jnyx . pnpur vf 3-4 ' hc va Rireterra.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)