The last time I posted anything was March of this year.
We all know what has happened since then and the near future is not looking much better.
So lets look at the year in review.
My Geocaching name was picked because of my love of cruising and combined with my first name made a great Geocaching name. The problem is I along with many others are grounded in place which means my name no longer really fits me. Will I have to change it to PhilonLand?
Since March as we know many things have happened. We have been on lock-down and many disabled their caches. The lock-down is lifted and we have groups running out to cache and do many caches that were disabled.
We then move into a time when we can start placing caches again. It doesn’t take long before I get email on this one.
Cachers are trying to put out caches in BC that have something to say about Covid19 and they are turned down by the BC Review Team as being part of an “agenda” which is not allowed. Yet in Washington State many caches were published to do with Covid19 that outright mentioned it on the cache page. What many may not know is the Washington Review team has a Reviewer who works in Groundspeak and is the Community Manager for Reviewers around the world. If she has no problem with these caches then why does the BC Team have a problem? My guess would be that the BC team has/is building its own God like empire and what they say goes.
Next I hear about a cache that has been published where one comes to a fence that has No Trespassing sign and one has to go around the fence to get the cache.
A cacher then tries to publish a Parking Lot Cache (God knows how many of those are around) in a Senior Community Centre and is told they need Surrey Parks permission. Surrey Parks is contacted and they say no not required. CO is told they need permission by the Reviewer.
This is another example of Empire Building by the BC Team.
I will have more on this soon.
In another note Groundspeak has cancelled some Events in the past because a Munzee Event is taking place near or at the Geocaching Event. Groundspeak wants nothing to do with Munzee so lets say you are hosting an Event and Munzee comes along and hosts an Event your Events could be cancelled.
Hey Groundspeak are you aware that Spacecoast Geo Store in Florida was recently bought by Munzee? So now what?
Do you have a cruise booked in the first 6 months of 2021?
If you do you may want to to re-think things and make other plans.
I have said since early on in this Pandemic that Alaska would be cancelled for last summer and it was. I then said to many forums that it would be cancelled until at least the end of 2020 and likely well into 2021.
I have been told I had no idea what I was talking about and so far all has come to pass.
First off there was the USA Center for Disease Control (CDC) that issued a no sail order until the end of October.
The cruise lines then worked with the CDC during a call for proposal of how they could start up. Almost all of the suggestions that were proposed were accepted and issued.
Now there are suppose to be “Test” cruises and the ship is then cleared to sail with reduced passenger count. Cruises are suppose to start out with no ports or to the lines private island for 2-4 days in duration. Once they past this test they can move up to 7 day cruises.
Any ship that sails from/to a US port can not sail more than 7 days. This order expires October 31 2121.
So far cruises of longer than 7 days to Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean have been cancelled. Princess and Cunard have either moved ships or cancelled out right.
Consider this no ships so far have been re-crewed in this part of the world. Each crew member has to go through a 14 – 28 day quarantine before they can sail as crew.
Just doing simple Math tells you that no cruises will happen well into April/May. The thought is the cruise lines are relying on the vaccine and will require it in order to board the ship.
On another note I was saddened when I got the email recently from the SWAG Board about the Mega Event for 2021 being cancelled. We all know the border situation and it is likely I could not have gone even if it was being held.
I also want to point out that OSM Maps appears to be down for the count. The last update was in June and it appears there will be no further updates because the owner of the site has disappeared and can’t be reached. He had stopped answering emails a few years back but still updated the page.
I have not found a good replacement at this point that doesn’t require a huge amount of work.
On that note, I wish you a Happy New Year for 2021!