Debate 2 - Should pens be INSIDE log book's zip lock bags?

[Rabbitto]

Debate 1 spawned an interesting side question. Should pens be left inside or outside zip lock bags?

On one hand pens tend to give up the ghost easily when exposed to dampness and the zip-lock bag gives it that bit better protection.

On the other hand, they are the first thing to puncture the log books zip-lock bag when placed together.

The polls are open...

[Biggles Bear]

BYO Pen

[sc00t]

If you leave the pen outside the bag, chances are it becomes a swap and then there is no pen

[caughtatwork]

BYO Pen

Seconded. At least then you're sure it will work (most of the time, anyway).

[swampgecko]

supply pencils and a sharpener

[Postman Pat]

Or how about putting a pen in its own plastic bay so that if it does puncture a bag its does not matter

[Papa Bear_Left]

I put a short, retractable point pen and a pencil sharpener inside the logbook bag, and a pencil outside the bag. On the bag I write "please don't put a pencil in this bag"

Retractable pens are less likely to puncture a bag than a sharp pencil, and pencils are less likely to be damaged by dampness outside the bag.

Plus I always carry a pen when I'm cache-finding, just in case!

[team_diesel]

We agree with C@W and BB.

We normally use our own pen because it works and is longer and easier to use than pens in some caches.

We have provided cut down pens in all our non-micro caches and they were in the bag with the log book simply because it seemed like the most logical place for it.

Pen & log, like beer & pizza, scones & jam, rock & roll, pie & sauce, Sistima & spiders, Lavern & Shirley - some things just seem to go well together. [/quote]

[Geof]

If you leave the pen outside the bag, chances are it becomes a swap and then there is no pen

2nd that but add with the stash note on top of the book with the heading & general discription positioned to be the first thing you see. "Grab and run " caches make this a bit hard sometimes.

[SNIFTER]

I am now using pencils. I was buying steadler sticks at first(the first 100 or so) I then aquired about 500 short pencils. I put 2 pencils into the zip lock bag along with a log book. There was one cache we did and we had a beautiful sparkly purple pen in the zip lock. Problem was someone forgot to put it back into the bag and a junior cacher liked the look of it so much that it went.
Hounddog doesn't usually have a pen on him but if I am there I have one.