A modern Valentine's Day story - a technological twist on tying the knot

By Jonathan Riley

DIGBY COURIER

NovaNewsNow.com

Here’s a Valentine’s Day story with a twist – how to propose in the new millennium.

Darren Harvieux wanted his proposal to Jada Patey to be something special.

“I didn’t want to do the fancy dinner thing. That’s not the type of people we are. When I asked her we were both wearing jeans and sweatshirts. “

The couple had been together for two years after meeting at the Relay for Life at Acadia University. Darren is from Digby and Jada is from Newfoundalnd. Last summer she was interning as a dietician in Yarmouth when Darren thought of the perfect way to ask her.

“We had been geocaching together for a while. It was something we always did together. By that point we had logged something like 30 or 40 or caches.”

Confused? What is geocaching you ask? Well we covered that in last week’s Courier, but for those who missed it, here’s the quick story.

It’s like a technological version of hide and seek. One person goes out and hides a small container –anywhere: in the woods, under a park bench, or in this case, on a beach.

The hider determines the precise longitude and latitude of the hidden container using a GPS (a small handheld receiver that uses satellites to determine exact location). And then the hider logs those coordinates on the Internet for anyone to find.

The container, or cache, usually holds some small trinkets or ‘treasure’ and a log book. As people find the cache, they sign the logbook.

Darren was down to Yarmouth visiting on July 4, 2007 and Jada was working all day. Although he had been planning and thinking about it for three or four weeks, he only bought the ring that day.

He went out early and found a cache in Yarmouth known as “Down to the Sea in Ships” or GCW0VP in geocaching techy talk.

The cache was hidden on July 15, 2006 by a geocacher from Port Maitland known as “dryfly & catch.”

He described the location of the cache on his cache log:

“This small cache is located in Overton by a monument erected to commemorate the first Yarmouth County Ship launching in 1764. En route to the Yarmouth Lighthouse, this boasts of easy parking and a few benches on which to relax and breathe in the salt air.”

As soon as Harvieux found the cache, he knew this was the spot.

“It was so peaceful there and there’s a beautiful view of the beach and the harbour. It was perfect.”

Darren took a deep breath and wrote a special note in the logbook.

After work and supper, Darren suggested they get a few geocaches while they were in the area.

“I was nervous something wouldn’t work – the page would be missing or something.”

Once the couple found the cache, Darren suggested they go sit on one of the benches to open it.

He gave her the logbook to sign while he pretended to look in his backpack for an item to leave in the geocache.

Jada flipped to the last page and screamed when she saw what Darren had written earlier that day:

“Jada will you marry me?”

Darren meanwhile pulled the ring from his backpack and formally proposed.

Jada accepted and the couple plan to marry on Aug. 1, 2009 near Gros Morne in Newfoundland.

Here’s an excerpt from Darren’s cache log from that day:

“A memorable hunt for sure. Thanks for a hunt we will remember for a life time. Very nice view. Left a Newfoundland key chain.”

And that’s how it done these days. Happy Valentine’s Day.