Ed Watson was a Bad Man by FatMike & Slugweena (4/4)
N25° 42.577 W81° 14.769 (WGS84)
UTM 17R E 475306 N 2843549
Use waypoint: GCF353
Size: Not chosen Hidden on 4/6/2003
In Florida, United States
Difficulty:
Terrain: 
I Hijacked this cache from Dogbone.
This one is about 16-17 miles into the Everglades backcountry. This is NOT a sunday afternoon outing. This one will take planning and execution. This can be reached by canoe/kayak or by motorboat. We did it in a 10ft Zodiac w/motor. If by kayak, I would allow 2 days paddling to reach the site. If by motor boat, you will need very shallow draft with a close lookout for the numerous shoals and oyster beds you will pass over.
This one is located on the site of a once thriving cane and vegetable farm. It was owned by the notorious Ed Watson, who killed several people on this site. In 1910 the bodies of two of Watson's workers were seen in the Chatham river with weights attached to their bodies. This upset some of the nearby neighbors and they gunned him down when he landed on their island. Warning: The bodies of several Watson victim's were never found and could still be somewhere on the site, and some claim his ghost still occupies the area. The farm was once 35 acres, however only about 1 acre remains cleared. Here you can see the remains of a syrup kettle, sistern, and farm inplements.
There is some additional information on traveling into the backcountry by reading the details of the "447 Lane Bay" cashe, (Florida), provided by Captain Hawke & Boomer. They did a great job laying out some of the information you will need to plan this expedition, so I'm not gonna retype it. Just read it.
Get charts, get books at the library. Get weather reports. Get your #*@$ together. A good portion of the route is the wilderness waterway, and it is marked pretty well. There is also a good amount of boat traffic on this route, but no cell phone coverage, (we took a hand held VHF radio.)
Still interested?? Along the way we saw many dolphins, one rode along our bow for a while. We were awaked at the Lopez river campsite, by manatees blowing, snorting, and breathing. We had spotted eagle rays glide beneath our boat. Osprey and jumping fish around every bend. This one is a challenge, but sometimes the bigger the challenge, the greater the reward.
E-mail me with the type of machine back in the woods for a find.
Additional Hints (There are no hints for this cache)
Current at 12/18/2006
1/17/2006 by The Gnome Gnavigators
There was a large group of canoers camping at the site when I stopped with my fishing buddies. Hope you give us credit for the find, have some pictures of the items in the area, like the large bowl, which I'll post on your cache site as proof of my visit.
Doubt that I will ever be back to the site, as I was tagging along on a fishing trip with friends. Glad we didn't meet Ed...heard he used to be pretty nasty!
10/5/2005 by marbill
Any updates on this cache? Interestingly enough I was born and raised near Ed Watson's (Edgar J) final burial place. There is also a virtual cache there 
I love the Everglades backcountry and would like to "grab" this cache as a follow up to the virtual in my home town. If you're interested in the final resting place cache, do a keyword search for Edgar J.
4/4/2005 by Lj&Co
We’ll at 05:30 I left the house to meet up with OB and Chico. By 0710 we were in the air and on our way to Watson place in the Skylark. Couldn’t of asked for a more spectacular day to try for this cache, and the company was great, little did I know that I would have and onboard comedy show. We slow as we approached the landing and had no trouble at all spotting Watson’s Place. You could spot the picnic tables, foundations and some of the farm equipment, as Chico slowly flew around the site. But man did my stomach turn with each bank, roll, and turn. OB dropped a few bugs out one side but Chico did another bank and turn and I (well Chico) managed to catch them on the wing of my side as I protested that Watson’s Place wasn’t in Miami-Dade and he couldn’t leave the “fish” there. Ghost? Can’t say for sure if there are any still there, but OB dropped three bugs and we pickup a fourth. Spooky joined us on our way out, my first virtual TB. While I’m hoping the owner will let this visit stand, thou if given the opportunity I would without question take a watercraft visit to the site.
Thanks to OB for putting this trip together, and Chico for both the piloting and the company (no bad for a non geocacher). A big THANKS go out to FatMike and Slugweena, for this most extraordinary cache.
Lj
4/4/2005 by OB Jets
We could not have picked a better day to come over and try this one, though we did it from above, I hope the owner will let the find stand.
I was sure I did the math correctly and added 1.75ft of Intl Orange(to make the easy for the next cacher to find) ribbon per 100ft in altitude to slow their velocity, how ever just after the release a stiff elevator told us differently, a quick stop in Everglades City fixed us right up...thanks we had a BLAST!
Ob
4/2/2005 by OB Jets
Dropping a bug in here in the hopes that our plans work out and we can get this one on monday...
Ob
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