Beach

josip

Many families when they go to a beach dig a hole. Then at the end of the day it gets filled back in.
My son gave me the idea of putting a message in a bottle in the hole before it's filled in. We've been doing this for the past couple of years.
We've usually been digging down to the water line with the expectation that only a few of these will be found in our lifetime.
We leave our contact details and some background info about what we're doing and where we buried it in case a storm/tide relocates it.
I was wondering whether other Boardsies were interested in doing this, to start a thread where people post on which beach they've just buried a time capsule and if anyone later finds one of these, they could also post the discovery on the thread.
If people want to post co-ords for their bottles to make those bottles easier to find, they can.
People could replace the found bottle if they liked, as per geocaching, but if it's been there a good few years, I'd have no problem with someone keeping it above ground. For the record, we've buried on the following beaches:

Ireland
Tramore, Waterford
Dogs Beach, Galway
Salthill , Galway
Carne Beach, Wexford
Brittas, Wicklow

France
La Tranche Sur Mer
Portiragnes, Cap D'Agde (just past the camper van with the Wexford Flag in Les Sablons)

Italy
Savona

Greece
Every beach in Sithonia

_Brian

Nice idea.
Must get the kids to do that for our next beach visit.

Sudance

Oh please don't. Burying stuff in the sand like this will more than likely end up with it just becoming another piece of junk, because the sands can shift by huge amounts over the course of a few months, and if it's a glass bottle buried under the sand there's a good chance that regular surfers etc could stand on it and end up with glass in the foot.

josip

Valid concern Sudance. We use these for our messages; they're virtually unbreakable

Sudance

josip wrote: »

Valid concern Sudance. We use these[/URL] for our messages; they're virtually unbreakable

Ouch....I'd hate to run across one of those lol.....think I better point out I'm thinking of being in bare feet or only having wetsuit booties on.

Mind you, have to admit, that's a creative idea all the same, small yet can fit the little note in. hang on, sure wouldn't they sink once the water got into them and the paper end up melting?

josip

You're very astute considering you've only looked at a picture.
We had been looking for a similar size and construction of bottle for a while, but in the end time, pressure made us compromise for these. We seal up the salt hole with wax and then we stretch a few layers of cling film across the top before screwing down the lid.
Our limited testing has shown it to be waterproof in the short term.
I think the weak point in all of this is the metal top of the shaker which might react with salt water. I'd prefer if we could get a plastic one.
We live by a beach so we would have seen how the sands can shift which is why we dig a bit back from HWM and down until we get to the water line, usually about a metre down. So it'll only be a substantial storm or global warming that will budge it.
As a kid I always hated having to fill in my hard-dug holes in Tramore at the end of the day. This helps to ease my pain.:)

Sudance

josip wrote: »

You're very astute considering you've only looked at a picture.
We had been looking for a similar size and construction of bottle for a while, but in the end time, pressure made us compromise for these. We seal up the salt hole with wax and then we stretch a few layers of cling film across the top before screwing down the lid.
Our limited testing has shown it to be waterproof in the short term.
I think the weak point in all of this is the metal top of the shaker which might react with salt water. I'd prefer if we could get a plastic one.
We live by a beach so we would have seen how the sands can shift which is why we dig a bit back from HWM and down until we get to the water line, usually about a metre down. So it'll only be a substantial storm or global warming that will budge it.
As a kid I always hated having to fill in my hard-dug holes in Tramore at the end of the day. This helps to ease my pain.:)

Yep, the metal will in all likely hold corrode faster than the paper inside.

Ah you're lucky, our beach is constantly shifting, but it does have quite strong currents most of the year. Great for surfers but a disaster for the coastal erosion that's happening. Ah I take it you're in Tramore, we're up at the North Mayo coast, brutal strong waves here.

My God, that's some digging. You must be dedicated geocashers.

Boots do small plastic travel vials for mere cents. Although I can't quantify their durabilty or even their lids waterproofness. I;ll keep my eyes open and if I see anything suitable I'll let you know, how about the little egg thing that does be inside the kinder eggs, or the old fashioned 32mill camera film containers, they were sometimes a right pain to get open?