Gin in a Box Geocoin

Saturday was a gorgeous day to be out in Southeastern Michigan.  It was the first warm, sunny Spring day, and TaGeez & I had an urge to explore.  We decided to head to Belle Isle to finish up some caches (before they release the new ones next week). We are behind this year due to his surgery, and we wanted to take advantage of a free afternoon.

Ice sheets building up on the shore

TaGeez taking pictures of the swiftly passing icebergs

We didn't find as many as we'd hope.  There were a lot of fabulous Multi's, and the Belle Isle Cachers don't do "park and grabs".  We made a list and tried to focus on some of the more recently found caches.  As we were winding down our day, near the beautiful Livingstone Lighthouse, I had an urge to try one more.

1956 Bill Muncey - 26 GC521RB

Foolish, really, as it's had a series of DNF's since its last finding in April!  But the sun was shiny, and doing this Multi meant crossing the new peninsula bridge near the lighthouse.There was some confusion whether this was a 2- or 3- stage Multi.  TaGeez found stage one on the bridge (Good thing.  Even though it was brand new, I was a little wary of it).

TaGeez at the new peninsula bridge

Stage two brought us to a little peninsula (which I vaguely recall being under water in the past).  This is where the previous finders failed since April!  Amazing to think it had a handful of finds the week it released and then nothing. 

View from the peninsula back to the bridge
Look at the ice sheets!

Admittedly, we almost gave up.  The coordinates put the next stage 30 feet into the water. But then we read a previous note from the cache owners.  It seems that stage 2 had gone missing in the Fall when the site disappeared - they had replaced it but at a new location. As they didn't have to move it too much, they never updated the stage one coordinates.  So we fanned out.

It was with a great crow of excitement that I shouted, "I found them!"  Oh, so faded.  We both twisted and turned the object into the sunlight.  We tried to take pictures hoping to darken it.  Finally, we took an educated guess and headed off to the final.

View from the final

 It was a nice walk, moseying hand-in-hand.  We made it to the coordinates, and, with great relief, uncovered the lonely container.  As we sat on the log, smiling from our victory, we were surprised one last time.  Inside this wonderous box was a geocoin!  Woot!  I was so excited, thinking I'd take it to Wapakoneta the next day (that's another blog post).

Unactivated trackable geocoin pin - gift from SEWdaugh

Imagine my greater joy when we arrived home to discover that it was unactivated!  A gift from SEWdaugh, the last finder of the cache!  I'm calling it "Gin in a Box" as it looks just like my Ginger.  Such an amazing end to a fabulous day!