It’s time for another edition of Treasure Island Caching’s Who’s Who.  It’s a relatively new feature where we ask a local geocacher a set of semi-structured questions in an effort to get to know them a little better. For our April edition, we contacted Shantrent, a pair of big time geocaching enthusiasts on the Burin Peninsula.  Here’s what they had to say!

What is your geocaching name?

Shantrent

How did you decide on this name?  

I (Shannon) had heard about geocaching on the Discovery Channel.  I never bothered to look into it even though it seemed interesting because I thought there was no way it was happening here in NL.  In August of 2008 my brother (now part of team shermandkim) told us how he tried it and there were actually geocaches in NL, with several being in and around our hometowns.  I decided we had to try this immediately.  We went online to sign up and tried tons of names, all of which were already in use.  Being impatient we decided to use a combination of both of our names (Shannon and Trenton), thus becoming team shantrent, not very creative I know!  

Are you a Newfoundlander or a CFA (a.k.a Where were you born or where is home?)  

Both of us grew up in small town’s on the Burin Peninsula, Garnish and Frenchman’s Cove, we now live a short distance away just outside of Marystown.

What was the first geocache you found?  

Our first find was Stage Head Road Cache in Frenchman’s Cove.  We had no clue what we were doing.  We had written down the co-ordinates and went near the location with our GPS, and wandered around looking at the GPS trying to get to the exact co-ordinates.  We had no idea at the time that you could just program the co-ordinates in and the GPS would guide you.  After quite some time looking we managed to find it.  We were hooked immediately!  It helped that when we found this cache it had a lot of swag in it and previous cachers had written some great logs in the log book.

How many geocaches have you found?  

We have found 1605 geocaches.  It’s difficult for us to get numbers as the majority of our geocaching occurs while travelling.  Less than 14% of our finds are within 100 km of our home.  There are approximately 300 caches on the Burin Peninsula, and we own 96 of those.  46% of our finds have been 100 - 250 km from our home, and 37% have been 500 – 1000 km from our home.  These numbers are a little misleading as well because it is the straightline distance, so driving distance can sometimes be double that distance.  There are some new cachers in our area who have started hiding caches so we hope they keep it up.  We have found geocaches in NS, NB, PEI, ON, and St.  Pierre.  Our best day was 106 finds including an event on June 25, 2011 on the beautiful island of PEI.

Do you have a favorite geocache or a short list of favorites?

 It’s hard to list specific caches.  We love creative hides, anything out of the ordinary gets us excited.  We love the red dirt roads of PEI.  They are absolutely beautiful and usually away from the prying eyes of muggles.  One cache in NL that we loved was A Bridge in Time (GCPG5B) in La Manche.  It contained old photos of when the community was still there.  It was nice to be able to look at the photos and see where all the houses had once stood.  We’ve always enjoyed hiking in this area.

What is your favorite type of geocache (traditional, puzzle, other, etc) and why?

Our favorite type is definitely traditional caches.  There is very little preparation required, you can just load the GPS with caches and go.  We don’t mind park and grabs, but I really like finding caches that bring us to beautiful areas that otherwise we would never have seen.  If we lived in an area with lots of puzzle caches I’m sure we’d begin liking those as well.  Right now they are just too much work when we’re going to be visiting an area for a short time.   We also enjoy event caches and earth caches.  We love meeting fellow geocachers because muggles will never understand why we love this sport so much!

What is your favorite geocache that you have hidden?

Out of our 96 hides, Sparrow’s Booty (GC313YN) is definitely our favorite.  I always feel like a pirate searching for buried treasure while geocaching and this geocache definitely captures that feeling.  

Who usually goes with you when you’re geocaching?  

Normally while caching it’s just the two of us.  Sometimes we join up with team shermandkim for a few finds.

What are some of your other hobbies?  

We both enjoy the great outdoors.  We like to go hiking, kayaking, camping, & cross country skiing.  We also enjoy campfires and boil ups in the woods.  We both love to read and watch movies.

A big Treasure Island Caching thank you goes out to Shantrent for volunteering to participate in our Who’s Who feature and hopefully we’ll be seeing you again before too long!