Attack of the KC88

Old fart in a jon boat. Photo by Linda Enders Roberts

Earlier in the week, the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars had plotted a geocaching outing for today — a challenging tunnel cache in the Raleigh-Durham area. For various reasons, that plan fell through. However, fortuitously, friend NCBiscuit (a.k.a. Linda) gave a shout and asked if any of us would care to go join a little group going kayaking after a bunch of new caches on Lake Holt, over near Butner. Friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and I, being the only two available from our initial gangsome, decided a day on the water might be just the ticket. So, off we went.

Partway there, I received a message from Linda that kayaks at Lake Holt had gone scarce, and I might better call to see if I could reserve one. As it turned out, all the kayaks were accounted for. My only option was a motorized jon boat, so I decided to go for it.

When we arrived at the lake, both Scott and I were quite surprised by the magnitude of the caching group that had gathered — a total of twenty folks, I believe it was. Mostly, it was friends and familiar faces. I made a handful of new caching acquaintances, which is always fun.

Someone suggested the team name KC88 — for Kayak Crew, August 8 — and it stuck. The jon boat, with its little trawling motor, could barely keep up with the fastest kayakers, but while our numbers spread far and wide over the lake, no one got left behind.

Well, not entirely, anyway.

By the time we had conquered 16 or so of the caches, the jon boat's battery decided it had had quite enough of this functioning business. Little by little, it began to wind down, until...finally...I was moving so slowly that kayakers were circling me at high speed, trying to whip up a current sufficient to keep me going.

Somehow, the boat made it all the way to the end, for a total of 21 caches — ten of which the team claimed first-to-find honors, since the cache listings had been published only yesterday. Fortunately for us, no one had yet gone after those on the west side of the lake.

Anyway, Scott and I finally hit the road for the return trip to the Triad — hot, exhausted, and a little sunburnt. Maybe the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars’ next outing, though, will be that challenging cache in the cool darkness of the underground. That's a whole different kind of cool.

Heading out on Lake Holt

Friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom) claims his 17,000th geocache find on the lake.
I wonder whether friend Tom goes geocaching a lot.

Friend Colleen84 (a.k.a. Colleen) whizzes past poor schmucks in jon boats

Friends CJZimmie (a.k.a. Cheryl) and Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) about to get lost
in the tall grass surrounding one of the lake’s islands

About half of Team KC88