What Happens When You Don't Use a Waterproof Container - "Needs Maintenance" Attribute

 

This is a log that we took out of a micro geocache that had gotten waterlogged.

 
 

Here it is unfurled.  

   

Film containers and hide-a-keys are commonly used for micro geocaches, but depending where they are hidden, they aren't always very watertight.  Probably the best thing to do if you're going to use this type of container is to put the log in a tiny ziploc-type bag (I don't know where to buy them, but we often come across them included with other things we purchase containing small pieces or parts and we save them for geocaching).

  

When a geocacher discovers that a log is wet they can add an attribute to the geocaching page indicating that the geocache "needs maintenance" - it looks like this:
 

A responsible geocacher owner should then go out and retrieve the old log and replace it with a new one.  However, for whatever reason, sometimes the geocache owner doesn't replace it, and sometimes another geocacher will take it upon themselves to replace the log after giving the geocache owner a chance to do so.  (Ususally a geocache owner enjoys having the log to look over, so it's polite to give the owner a chance to come get his own log and replace it.)
  
On our recent trip to the Yankee Candle flagship store we came across this geocache that had "needed maintenance" for quite some time and being the benevolent geocachers that we are, we happened to have some new logs with us.
 

 

    

So we replaced the old waterlogged log and put in a nice, new, dry one.

  

 

  

DH was very nice and after we got home and dried the log out, he photographed it and emailed it to the geocache owner.

  

Moral of the story: try to use a small ziploc bag to hold the log if you're using a geocache container you know isn't watertight, and, it never hurts to carry some spare logs with you!