9-30-07 Caching Adventure to Tahoe… I teamed up with Dichroic and headed up the hill on a mission to grab a 5/5 underwater cache and replace the leaking container located in Lake Tahoe. Leaving early in the AM we grabbed a few caches on our way up the mountain before arriving in Tahoe to rent a Kayak and make out journey about 700 feet out on the lake to do what we came to do….. This is where the day went bad. Well not bad, just really hard! By the time we arrived at the beach to make our boat launch the wind had really picked up and the water was really rough. We headed out fighting the wind and waves and found the cache on our first try. There it is!!! About 12 feet below the surface of the water…. and there is goes…. The wind immediately blew us away from ground, I mean water, zero. Within seconds the GPS told us that we were 50 feet, now 80 feet, now 130 feet away. CRAP!! We circled again, found the cache, and were blown away again. Repeat over and over again. Finally we decided that on the next pass over the cache I would take the plunge with the new container in hand. Swim down, unhook the old and hook the new and swim back to the kayak as Dichroic tried to keep the rig near. Simple enough? Yeah Right!! I rolled off the Kayak with the new container in hand and swam down. In the few seconds that I had down there I could not find the carabineer holding the old container on the anchor’s rope so I just grabbed the cache and swam back up to the surface. Cache and rope was not too bad but the coffee can cement anchor made it a real challenge! Kicking as hard as I could to stay afloat in the surf I struggled to find a way to switch out the containers until I could no longer fight the anchor. For safety reasons I just released the cache to drop back to it’s resting place back under the surface. I swam over to the now overturned Kayak and Dichroic in the water since the wind and waves got the better of the unbalanced watercraft. We both took a short rest break floating in the waves holding onto the kayak while I put my life vest back on then up righted our ride back to shore. We slowly made our way back to shore wet, cold, tired and worst of all DEFEATED!!! This cache is a 5/5 for a reason. On a day like today it could be rated an 8/8! Waiting for us at the shore was a park ranger that was called out by someone on shore thinking that we were in distress but all was fine. We were just cold and wet. Good to know that there is such a fast response by the Tahoe Rangers if there was an emergency on the lake. Anyway, we will be back next summer to try again in calmer waters which would have made all the difference. It is a very doable cache if the water is calm and wind is low. After our defeat we hit a few more caches on the way home including a “trip redeeming” terrain 4 hike to a cache on the top of one of the hills surrounding and overlooking the crewel, yet beautiful waters below. Darn you wind and waves! Today’s Stats: Trip to Tahoe, 12 finds, one DNF, some really great hikes and views and a visit to a historical marker. Overall a great day. I Discovered up this Traveler along the way.