Treasure hunting

A goofy things wall

All those things we did as kids are never really far away from my psyche. One of my favorite things to do back then was to hunt for treasures which could be anything at all. A pretty colored rock, an unusual sea shell, a piece of driftwood, or sea eroded glass and some cool out of the way place that no one knew about.

A few adult treasures

My brother and i would collect stuff we had found and lay it out on little alters in spaces we had created beneath buildings under construction. Sometimes the jetty would be our stash place and we would crawl through the rocks on our bellies until we found a small cavern where we could sit up and display our booty. We were always scavenging and finding new cool hideouts. We would leave our treasures all over the place wondering who would find them but the scavenging part was by far the most fun.

In fact i still hunt for stuff. i really can't stop and sometimes will hold others up because i'm so busy looking around. When ever i'm swimming into shore at Cane Bay i take my time while scanning the bottom for whatever catches my eye and when i'm out birding i'm also looking down because you never know what lies hidden.

A bowl full of treasures

Recently while treasure hunting on line i came across an activity that started in England in the mid 1850's. It's called Letterboxing and kind of like Geocaching you are given clues that will lead you to the Letterbox. Originally it started out as a bottle that was placed on a trail where you could then place your calling card after you had found it. Eventually it morphed into a box where hikers could place postcards that the next hiker to find it would clear out and mail. i actually came across one in England while walking in the moors but didn't have a postcard to leave behind or even knew what it was called.

Today in North America the boxes contain a rubber stamp that you ink up and stamp into your journal. Plus you carry your own rubber stamp that you use to sign into the visitors book. Some are hidden to make the quest more difficult and some have the instructions to find them easily available. There is a website http://www.letterboxing.org/ that details how to go about either placing a Letterbox or finding one.

A treasure ship?

Of course when i found the website i immediately looked up St. Croix to see if we had any letterboxes. Nope...none here but there are a few in Puerto Rico and Culebra. i guess i could place one but i'd rather find one. i think the next time i'm in the states i'll take what ever kids are around on a letterboxing hunt. Seems like a fun activity and gets us all out of the house and off the electronic devices. i even have rubber stamps.

Maybe some of you out there might think about looking up boxes in your areas. It would be really cool if you actually go out to find one and brought a child with you. Let me know how it goes.

See ya next week.