This is a traditional geocache hidden in the Culmore area of Derry/Londonderry. It is right beside an unprotected drop down onto the beach. In addition there are at least two large beams in the grass nearby and other uneven surfaces, so be careful of trip hazards as you search. At high tide the water comes right up to the edge of the cache location so it is not advised to look for it after dark and a close watch should be kept on young geocachers at all times.
If you had been standing on this spot on 14th May 1945, looking out towards the distant open sea, you would have observed a sight to behold. The terror of the Atlantic, Dornitz's U-boats, were sailing in to surrender to The Allies. They would moor at Lisahalley, directly across and to your right. Look carefully if you walk around the bay and the wooden posts of the old docks can still be seen here and slightly further downstream, as a testament to that historic day. Admiral Sir Max Horton oversaw the surrender and had picked the Londonderry port as a principal site of capitulation and wisely so, given its centrality in winning the Battle of the Atlantic. It was The Allies most westerly naval base and surrounded by some of the key airfields from the campaign at Eglinton, Maydown and Ballykelly. The first of the feared "unterseeboote" to enter the Lough was U-1009 under Oberleutnant Klaus Hilgendorf with a further seven craft in his wake. Symbolically he was met by HMS Hesperus, HMCS Theford Mines and USS Paine to represent three of the allied combatant nations in the battle, these being the British, Canadians and Americans. By the time the last German submarine moored up, somewhere between 40 to 60 were docked at Lisahally awaiting their fate. 82% of all U-boat personnel had been killed during the war and those that remained, may later have looked back on their capture, as a humbling but life saving experience. If only someone had had the foresight to realise that history is not best understood by its destruction, one craft may have been spared as a museum piece for the generations to come. But such wisdom was tempered by a desire to see the instruments of one of the deadliest campaigns in the war, erased from the record. One by one they were towed to the entrance of Lough Swilly and given the same fate as the almost 2500 ships they had destoyed. They were systematically sunk as the concluding part of Operation Deadlight.
The cache is a micro and designed to fit in with its built environment. Place be careful with it and replace exactly as found.