CJS - Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve Traditional Geocache
CJS - Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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Come on a journey to remember and commemorate the history and
travels of Captain John Smith!
Over four hundred years ago, Englishman John Smith and a small crew
set out in an open boat to explore the Chesapeake Bay. Between 1607
and 1609 Smith mapped and documented nearly 3,000 miles of the Bay
and its rivers. Along the way he visited many thriving American
Indians communities and gathered information about this
“fruitful and delightsome land.” In December 2006 the
U.S. Congress designated the routes of Smith’s explorations
of the Chesapeake as a national historic trail—the first
national water trail.
Are you ready
to follow in the wake of Captain John Smith? Visit sites along the
National Historic Trail and learn about the native cultures and the
natural environment of the 17th-century Chesapeake through the
Captain John Smith Chesapeake Geotrail. The Trail provides
opportunities for you to experience the Bay through the routes and
places associated with Smith’s explorations. Caches will be
located in museums, refuges, parks, and towns in Virginia, Maryland
and Delaware along the rivers and creeks that Smith and his crew
explored four centuries
ago.
The Captain
John Smith (CJS) Geotrail launched June 4, 2011 with over 40 caches
within Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. A trackable geo coin will
be awarded to the first 400 geocachers, while supplies last, for
locating at least 15 CJS caches. To be eligible for the coin,
geocachers must download a passport from either the CJS Geotrail or Maryland Geocaching Society website.
Geocachers must find and log at least 15 finds, record the code
word from each cache on their passport and post a picture of
themselve at each cache location. After discovering the 15 required
caches, geocachers may have thier passports validated in person or
via mail at the National Park Service, Chesapeake Bay Office
located at 410 Severn Ave, Suite 314, Annapolis, MD 21403. Please
refer to the passport for complete validation instructions.
Participating in the CJS geotrail is fun and we
hope that many people join in. However, it is not a requirement for
logging your find on this cache once you find the
container.
You are seeking a traditional hide, Lock & Lock container,
stock with CJS swag. Hoffler Creek offers free admission but they
do have restricted hours. Please no night caching and refer to the
website for updated information:
http://www.hofflercreek.org/index.php
HOURS: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
ADMISSION: Free Admission. Donations Appreciated.
FACILITIES & RESTRICTIONS: Kayak rentals, Portable Toilet,
Natural Hazards, Children must be supervised, and Pets are not
allowed.
No jogging, biking, or smoking on the trails.
Picnicking is allowed under the pavilion. Please, pack out your
trash.
Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve This 142-acre site includes vast
wetlands, a heavily wooded forest and a unique saltwater lake.
Located on the shores of Hoffler Creek, the dividing line between
Suffolk and Portsmouth, the preserve is the last viable wilderness
area in the area and is a thriving habitat for countless species of
plants and animals native to Southeastern Virginia.
Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve contains four distinct habitats: a
tidal creek and its expansive salt marsh, a riparian forest of
pines and hardwoods, a meadow of native wildflowers and grasses,
and a non-tidal brackish lake. The Preserve provides food and cover
for an unusually diverse population of wildlife, including deer,
foxes, river otters, crabs, oysters, and over 200 species of birds.
Interpretive trails winding through each of the habitats introduce
visitors to the ecological, economic, and social value of the
plants and animals living at the mouth of the historic James River
and Chesapeake Bay.
In addition to the tranquil trails, the Wildlife Preserve offers
educational programming, a lovely picnic shelter, and kayak rentals
and lessons for a modest fee. The preserve also participates in
local restoration efforts by “seeding” and growing
oysters in protective nets. Once the oysters are big enough, they
are distributed in some of the rivers and creeks in which they
lived before pollution and over-harvesting reduced their population
- by some 98% since John Smith’s time. Effective filter
feeders, oysters can remove plant matter and pollutants from 50
gallons of water a day – a crucial task in the Chesapeake Bay
and its tidal rivers and
creeks.
Hoffler Creek flows into the James River near its mouth, in between
the Nansemond and Elizabeth Rivers, close to the James’s
confluence with the Chesapeake Bay. The Virginia Company colonists
would have sailed by the spot shortly after they first landed in
North America in modern-day Virginia Beach, as they made their way
up to the site they soon selected for their settlement on Jamestown
Island. Settlement of the area around Hoffler Creek began in the
1620s, when an English shipbuilder petitioned for a land grant to
begin a shipbuilding operation. The cities flanking Hoffler Creek,
Suffolk and Portsmouth, grew rapidly in the colonial period, as
tobacco cultivation boomed, demanding the construction of numerous
vessels for trade and
transportation.
Thanks to seepaulgolf for helping with
this hide and to the Maryland Geocaching Society for assisting with
this
project!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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