Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Dance the Night Away! by St. Clements Heritage Advisory Committee (1/2) N50° 33.552  W96° 37.609 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 668089  N 5603497 Use waypoint: GC1R9HF Size: Regular    Hidden on 5/4/2009 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:   *No attributes specified*     Welcome to the St. Clements Historic Geocache Tour! All of our sites on our tour are located in areas of historical significance. Each location contains a cache with historic geocache cards. These collector cards contain historic information about each site. We hope that you will take a card from each site, attempting to collect one card from every site on our tour. This cache is located in Grand Beach, Manitoba. Travel to the world famous beach at the northern tip of the St. Clements Municipality. Walk along the boardwalk and search for your destination. The historic signs will help you find your destination. Geocache safely and enjoy!

Additional Hints (There are no hints for this cache)

7/18/2009 by Kabuthunk
Aww... I didn't know there was supposed to be collector cards in the cache (or possibly in the cache's hiding spot). I guess next time I'm at Grand Beach, I'll have to double-check this location and see if there's anything that I just missed.

In either case, today a group of friends and I had decided to make a day-trip out to Grand Beach. In total, there was 8 of us basking in the sun, playing in the water/sand, and having a good time. Beautiful day out, very little wind, and well worth the drive out. Me, being the only geocacher in the group, had decided to head out to find "that geocache that's somewhere close to the beach by the food area" today. We were out at the beach last weekend, but it was too windy, cold, and cloudy for me to get the effort up to walking to the other side of the beach. Although at least the waves were particularly large and fun that day .

So anyway, myself and two friends started off from our camping spot out near parking lot 5, and headed in the general direction of the food shack.

Which actually brings me to one of the most confusing aspects about Grand Beach. Why in the world do most people gather near the food shack, where there's a million rocks on the beach, the sand is coarse and gritty, and the music is obnoxiously loud from the bandstand a bit West of there? It just... doesn't comprehend in my mind why droves of people absolutely PACK into that area, yet around the last parking lot, the sand is a hundred times smaller and smoother, it's quieter, there's a lot less rocks on the beach, and it just seems nicer as a whole. I mean... if you want snacks, it's all of 750 meters from where we were... not exactly a cross-country hike. Heck, most of my friends went on a mini-donut run midway through the day! So... yeah, I just can't possibly fathom what the appeal is of that side of the beach.

But... I digress. Besides, the more people that are packed in the coarse-sanded, rock-strewn, music-blasted area, the less that are a mere 3/4 of a kilometer East of there, enjoying the ridiculously soft sand, the quiet (although the bass from the music sometimes reaches), and the significantly less crowds .

So as the three of us walked Westward, noting the slowly-becoming-gritter sand, we walked across a few of the sandbars that were right beside the shore (which annoyingly had lots of bird crap on them... c'mon birds... why right there?!? That would have been an awesome spot otherwise to park my blanket for the afternoon). Shortly thereafter, we reached the crowds and the snack bar. Realizing that it wasn't "ON" the beach (my first estimation was that it would be somehow on the stairs or something going onto the beach, guestimating from the 750 meters away), and hooked left towards the coordiantes.

As I quickly made my way to ground zero, it took me approximately 0.05 seconds to locate where the cache must be located. Since the bystander population happened to be minimal at that moment, I quickly checked where I figured the cache would be, and was indeed correct. Parking myself on the sand hill a bit away from there (where the sand was ALSO nice and soft... maybe the softer sand is just trampled away from the 'busy' area of the beach...), I signed the logbook and dropped in a chainmail ball. The others with me were amused at how easy it was to find, and we were a little surprised that it hasn't gone outright missing. Then again, it "looks" like it's supposed to be there, and I imagine it's busy enough that noone can really try anything suspicious too easily.

I had to wait a minute or so for the coast to be clear again, and then I quickly slipped the cache back into its hiding spot. Mission accomplished . That done, the trio of us headed back East again for the second half of the day's fun in the sun .

Thanks for giving me a cache to hunt after right close to the beach area .

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball