P-MAN XII Progress Report #05 - Jungle, sonar, and manta boards
20-21 February 2010

Yesterday was a jungle warmup day. Warm it was and it lasted all day. The plan was to go to an area where we think a Marine Corsair went down. We were going to poke around the perimeter and figure the best way in and really go at it at a later date.

Well, if you wait five minutes, technically, it is later. So down we went into the jungle to search for this Marine. And we did not find even a single rivet. We have had 4 different excursions into this general area and haven't seen a thing. We're going back to the smart man theorem and do so more interviews in the area and see if anybody knows anything.

Paul, as Land Operations Leader, leading us

We did have the Army with us on this hike. This year the CAT (Civic Action Team) is made up of Army personnel, and we had extended an invitation to them to join us. Three of their folks, Chris the O.I.C., Dana and Ben, went hiking with us. It is always great to be around folks who are on active duty. And they seemed to like what we do, as they said they want to go back out with us sometime.

And the Army found something on this hike. Ben found a very significant cave. Japanese-constructed, but with stone lining. Normally, they are just dug out from the soil. This one was very well constructed. It did not go very far back, but it is different from what we've seen before.

In the cave.

It also lets us know that the Japanese were in the area where we think this Corsair was shot down. That means that most likely, they visited the crash site.

We debriefed our day's adventure over dinner and came up with some ideas on how to proceed in this target area. Then it was time for bed for everyone. Pretty tuckered out from the first hike.

However, I think the first hike has helped me slide a little toward this time zone. I got up at 0500 instead of 0400. Now it's time for me to make some breakfast for everyone and then we are heading out onto the water. A "warm-up" water day. Well, we saw how disciplined we were about that yesterday. I'll tell you all about it in a few hours.

*** A few hours later: ***

We had a ball on the water. We deployed the SSS (side-scan sonar - thanks again Marine Sonic) with great effect. Rick and Paul took it out to test drive it over the "Helmet" shipwreck in Malakal Harbor and saw the ship easily. Then we found a Japanese Zero in 65 feet of water. What makes this so good is there is very little vertical feature to the aircraft crash site. And it looked like an airplane! So we're feeling very good about this. Then we took a few minutes to actually dive the airplane and get everyone current underwater again.

BentProp's first buoy. And we own it, too!

We cruised up north to look for a reported airplane off the capital. The weather was pretty rough, the tide was going out and we did not see anything but natural ocean bottom on the SSS screen. So we pulled up sensor unit and headed back to calmer waters to test another new tool for us: manta boards.

Flip on a "manta board."

A manta board is a diving plane for a snorkeler or scuba diver. It's just a flat piece of wood, with handles cut into it, and a bit of rope threaded through some holes in the middle to give an attach point. Then, like a water skier, a tow rope from the boat is attached to the attach point. We played out about 100 feet of line and with Paul on the port side and me on the starboard side, we "flew" the manta boards through the water.

What this allows us to do is effortlessly be towed through the water, either on the surface or beneath, while we scan the bottom for stuff. You can dive down quickly to take a slightly closer look, and come back up as well. It is very controllable and it is easy to maintain a level "altitude". Although it is very fun, it also can be an added risk, especially when adding scuba into the equation. We have only snorkeled with it so far, and plan to get everyone more snorkel time on the boards before we move to scuba.

And back to base we headed, got in earlier than we normally do and figured out what our plan of attack will be for the next week or so. Tomorrow we will conduct some interviews and get more intel. Then Tuesday we'll be on the water. Tuesday night Jack Herbert arrives from Marine Sonic to really tune us up. Then we'll start a rotation of two days on the water and one day on land.

- Flip
 

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