Equator Multi-Cache

Visiting Equator at her home at the 10th Street boat launch in Everett, Washington, is like stopping to chat to a lonely old woman. She sits in her shed as if at her tenement window hoping that someone passing by will stop and blether for a while from the street. She's anxious to tell stories of her heyday, about the exotic islands she sailed to and most of all the famous writer and poet she kept at sea for many months.

Behind the dreamy bravado lies a sad looking boat some would call a wreck. Her beauty these days lies deep in her story. Her spirit lives on but she has lost her looks. Subtract point zero one one from latitude.

The story of Equator begins in Benicia, California, in 1888, when she was built by Matthew Turner. Said to have been one of the greatest shipbuilders of his time, Turner assembled the boat to be a South Sea trader and mail boat.

Stevenson arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1888 where he and his family jumped ship. The following June they left for the Gilbert Islands – a vast 2,400 miles away - aboard Equator. (Ironically, the earth's equator runs through the former British island chain.) Stevenson referred to the boat as a "pygmy schooner" since she was a little more than 20 meters (66 feet) long and about 72 tons.

One can only speculate what power the schooner might have had to keep Stevenson sailing the Pacific for four months and indeed inspire him in some of his writings.

In a letter to his friend Sidney Colvin from aboard Equator, Stevenson said:

"My Dear Colvin - We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain, calms, squalls, bang - there's the foretopmast gone; rain, calm, squalls, away with the staysail; more rain, more calm, more squalls; a prodigious heavy sea all the time, and the Equator staggering and hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, crowded with wet human beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping everywhere: Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up wonderfully."

From the Gilbert Islands, a few months later, the schooner took the family to Samoa where Stevenson hoped to find a climate that would improve his weakening health.

Too sick to brave the cold climate of Scotland, Stevenson knew that he would never see his beloved homeland again. He died in 1894 at age 44 in Samoa.

What happened to Equator during this time is murky. The craft started out as a schooner but eventually became a blackbirder, a kind of slave ship, in the South Seas, says Dick Eitel, one of the men who resurrected her.

The boat later worked up and down America's Pacific coast transporting lumber. Equator also spent some years as a tug before being dismantled. The hull was placed in breakwater in Everett during the 1950s.

The Equator deserved a place in the world of historic treasures, so she was put on the state and national registers of historic places. Which was accomplished by 1973. Please add point three one six to the longitude.

New condominiums that will soon be built in the area do not threaten the dark and dank rotting boards of this sad old lady. If she could tell her stories they would be something to share with future generations.

Stevenson is said to haunt Equator. Whether he does or not might only be answered by the few feral cats, among them Orange and Rambo, who live aboard the old schooner, roaming the hull and keeping rats and mice at bay.

The container is a small cache but not quite as big as a decon container. Please bring something to write with and return the cache carefully so the cachers behind you will enjoy this one as much as you did. It doesn't hurt to practice CITO also.