A Kadian Tag was logged with the discovery of this unbelievable cache find. Here's the story and info on the location.
02/05/2013
This is the most memorable cache find of my caching career of 1500ish finds. I’m sure that I will ever make a more memorable cache find than this one.
We had been planning our trip to Antarctica for a couple of years, and getting at least one cache in Antarctica was really important of course in clocking up countries and continents.
Black Ice in the Peninsula (photo by another geocache adventurer Dave McCullough)
Our expedition ship was the MV Sea Adventurer. We’d already had an awesome couple of days landing at a number of places, but we had yet to find a cache in Antarctica. There are just a few caches in the Antarctic Peninsular. I got really excited when our expedition leader Alex announced that we would be visiting Paradise Harbour the next day for a Zodiac Cruise. But alas he has no plans to land at Base Antártica Brown specifically. So near and yet so far!
At the start of our expedition, (xxx) had said “If there is anything you want to do, let us know, and we will try to accommodate you.” Well this was it for me ! So the night before, I grabbed (xxx) and explained that I am a Geocacher, and that there is a cache at the base, and while in Paradise Harbour I’d love to grab it. He knew what geocaching was, and understood how important a find in Antarctica is ! And he’d make it happen for us. Awesome !
So, the next evening came, around 9pm, and the rest of the passengers went for an evening Zodiac cruising around Paradise Harbour. (xxx) held us back in the Zodiac loading area, and launched a Zodiac with him as driver, and just the Mrs and myself as passengers.
Glaciers of Antarctic Pennisula
Base Brown was around 3.6km away across the bay, and there were lots of small lumpy bits of ice between the ship and the base. As the boat was pretty empty we could go fast, as so we were close to the base in no time. We also saw a whale.
Blue Ice by David McCullough
250m from the base, the Zodiac broke down! The outboard engine was not well at all, it was spluttering and kept stalling. And was then went completely dead. (xxx) swapped over the fuel tank, but no. So, we were floating in the middle of a bay full of ice, a couple of hundred metres from an Argentine Base, and we were drifting out of control. We were concerned that we’d have to log a DNF but (xxx) assured us that one way or another, we’d get to the cache.
(xxx) radioed the bridge of the ship to get another Zodiac sent out to rescue us. But in the meantime, he was able to get the engine started again, and we were able to limp very slowly spluttering towards the base. Then (xxx) said “Well that’s the easy bit – now to get permission to land from the Argentines”(!).
So from the Zodiac, he radioed Almarantie Brown Base in Spanish. After a bit of banter, including an explanation that the guest he had on board wanted to land for “cinco minutos” for “geocaching photo”. Argentines came back with permission “No problemo”. Awesome.
Local Wildlife
We limped over the old Almerantie Brown landing dock, and threw ourselves out of the Zodiac, while (xxx) tied it up. the Mrs face-planted onto the dock, very elegant, and created a huge and long lasting bruise on her knee. We could see our rescue Zodiac in the distance, so we realized that we needed to get the photo taken and info gathered quickly so as to not waste fuel and people’s time.
The Mrs. quickly took 2 photos of me at GZ with my GPSr. And I tried to take photos of some trackables at GZ, but in all the rush I only got one photo. We were concerned that we would damage valuable Antarctic mosses in gathering some of the information, so (xxx) quickly ducked under a fence to gather the information using the camera on my GPSr. In just a few minutes, we were back in the rescue Zodiac, and with the crippled Zodiac in tow, we were heading back to the ship through the ice.
Back on the ship, we were really overcome by the amazing experience, and for the amazing customer service shown by (xxx) who made this cache find, and caching continent number 6 happen for us. As well as a massive “gracios” to the Argentinians for the permission to land at their location.
Almerantie Brown Landing Station
And here is information on the cache location itself:
On a voyage of discovery to the Antarctic Peninsula, there are not many places at which one can enter the 7th continent.
One of them is Paradise Harbour in the Paradise Bay. The Argentines constructed their research station "Almirante Brown" here on the Coughtrey Peninsula.
It is embedded in a breath-taking panorama and is wind-protected by the off-shore islands Lemaire and Bryde.
Enter the Antarctic mainland here and enjoy the mountains over 2000 m high and the innumerable glaciers, with their glacier towers and termini.
The base was constructed in 1950. 10 buildings were built for about 15 researchers. The nearest harbor is Ushuaia and is 1100 km remote.
The base is 10 m above sea-level, removed to 20 m from the coast and 140 m from the anchorage.
A marine base with meteorological observations was initial to Almirante Brown.
From 1964 it was assumed of the Antarctic institutes of Argentine and specialized on biological research.
Many decades the base was in a full-year way busy until it was destroyed by tragic circumstances in 1984.
The former doctor had already 3 full-years behind himself. When the Argentinian supply ship came, no replacement was there again.
He should wait one fourth once for a year. He could not stand this thought.
Shortly before beginning the winter an American ship was nearby the station, he poured out gasoline in the buildings and the base was burned down.
His calculation opened and the team was saved. Back the ruins of the station stayed...
Slowly the life returns into the base and it becomes at the reconstruction worked.
Snow changes into glacial ice. The ice proportion to snow in this change is 1:80. For the formation of 1 cm of glacial ice, 80cm snow are necessary.
Glacial ice most quickly forms itself in the summer months, when the snow thaws during the day and freezes again overnight.
In this case the fine-radiated-crystalline snow crystals change into granular firn. Renewed fallouts exert pressure.
Through penetrating snow, liquid water diminishes the air within, and glacial ice arises.
While fresh-fallen snow typically contains 90 % air, the air part of blue glacial ice is near 2 %.
Enjoy the look onto the surrounding glaciers and the mountains of the Antarctic peninsula high over 2000 m.
With the Zodiaks one can drive up to the edges of the glacier towers in the Paradise Bay.
Recently, we started reviewing the travels of Kadian Geotags - a tremendously exciting discovery. We wanted to share this one immediately.
Stay tune for more tag stories - this particular Kadian Tag has travelled over 22k miles.