Paddling White Oak Pond

A few years ago I noticed a new series of puzzle caches pop up on a lake near my dad’s house in New Hampshire. It was a series of 10 puzzle caches, all micros, placed on quiet White Oak Pond. The puzzles ran the gamut from easy to devilishly tricky. And every so often I take a look at them. I’ve managed to solve 5 of them, and feel like I am close on a few others. And every time I visit my dad, which isn’t that often, I think about going out to try to find them. This year, it actually looked like a good possibility. We had several days to lounge at my dad’s house, with very little planned agenda. My dad has several small boats, kayaks, canoes and even a small rowboat, all perfect for the quiet White Oaks Pond. The fact that the whole family was excited to go out with me to find these caches was even better. My dad, my brother, my wife, son and daughter, we all headed out for an afternoon on the lake. My dad and brother ended up taking the canoe, the rest of us piled into my dad’s brand new Adirondak Guide rowboat. I have to say, the row boat is very smooth, and efficient. We easily sped away from the canoe, and I wasn’t even rowing that hard.

White Oak Pond in style with an Adirondak Guide Row Boat

We made it to the first cache location and I learned that a rowboat is actually pretty tough for tight maneuvers near the shore. With my wife calling out the distance to GZ from the GPSr, I addled my way into getting the nose of the boat where we thought the cache should be, and voila, my wife spotted the tether, and then the cache.

I've got ... Moxie!

We got to row through a lovely patch of lily pads and flowers to get to the next GZ and for this one I decided we’d actually hop out of the boat to make our search. My son and I both hopped out and squished in the marshy mud and started our search. This time we were not so lucky. My dad and brother joined in the search and we squished all over, swatting at mosquitos and not finding the cache. After a little bit of time, and some near-misses with falling into the water (which wouldn’t have been so bad if you asked me), we decided to get back in the boats and try the next cache location. We ended up switching boats, I got into the canoe, and my brother hopped in the row boat. A bit of a breeze was blowing now, and we had to paddle right into it. It wasn’t tough going, but it wasn’t fast. On the plus side, the breeze blew the mosquitos away. The next cache was easy to find, once again my wife spotted it first and signed it for me. I wanted to go after a few more, but it was getting late, so we turned our backs to the wind and has a race back to the boat ramp. I’m pleased to say that my dad and I won.

Since we only found two of the White Oak Pond puzzle caches, I already was thinking about heading back out in a kayak on my own to grab the rest. I was already getting up early this vacation (see Maine trip). I could easily slip away the next morning, grab a kayak and take quiet paddle to find the rest. And that is exactly what I did.

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White Oak Pond at 6:00 was a sheet of glass, and it was pure bliss to glide over it. I passed a family of Canadian geese, had a loon swim right by me, and was generally feeling pretty good. I was also taking a bunch of pictures with my phone, and to make it easier to access, I was stowing my phone underneath my life-jacket, simply by lifting it up a bit and letting the phone be pressed between my chest and the foam. This turned out not to be such a great idea, as at the second geocache, I stepped out of the kayak and the phone slipped out and right into the lake. I snatched it up right away and it hardly got wet, but it still wasn’t a good thing. The phone appeared to be working still, but there was some moisture on the inside of the camera lenses. I finished finding the last three caches on the lake, and was back to the house by 8am, just in time for a big breakfast. The phone went into a bag of rice to sit and dry for 24 hours. And I’m happy to say, it is working just fine now.

Now to solve those last 5 puzzles for our next visit.