| P-MAN XIII Update #10 - Dan O'Brien departs Palau in full stream-of-consciousness mode [Editor's note: Dan
can actually write prose. In English. But sometimes he goes into a trance,
and starts
generating stream-of-consciousness stuff
that's basically like Pentecostals speaking in tongues, except a little
more understandable, and it makes you kind of dizzy to read. Below you'll
find an example. You
might
want
to
grab
a
couple
of
beers,
or something
stronger, and have at least one before starting this. I don't intend to
even try to edit it, and I will accept no responsibility for brain damage
that may occur to readers who approach this without proper chemical fortification. 10 February Rick caught the 2am flight out of Palau headed back to Seattle....
Met a guy today who is working on his PhD about sea grasses and stuff that grows in water up to 40 feet deep. He happens to have found a LIDAR sensing survey of certain areas of Palau ocean floor. We got him so excited about looking for stuff for us that he took the day off doing it. Thanks. 11-12 February More SSS. More boat issues. But one boat is out towing SSS collecting data. The other half of the team is back at the hotel crunching the numbers and looking at the sonar pics trying to find crashed airplanes. 13 February A leisurely casual Sunday of brunch at Palau Pacific Resort ( that be the really nice hotel on a real beach) with friends and new friends, very very nice. Then back to work. I think the nice food and lovely brunch paid off with getting folks motivated to go dive. We found 2 boats today with Paul placing clumps&buoys and then the diver boat pulls up and splashes divers as Paul's boat moves out to mark the next site.......the one hit just inside the claw of Malakal is a boat at 115', the site just outside the claw was too deep 145'+ but we tried to look, 3rd site south Western lagoon in a cove is a boat at 60' very very milky visability.
Then we dove and snorkeled the known
TBM Avenger at 30 feet.....the dive folks that have not seen a real
crash site
got very excited about that and what a real crashed coral encrusted
aircraft site looks like....... 14 February Another day of SSS with a twist. Today we try and acquire the targets of interest we reviewed and crunched at the hotel the past 2 days. This means towing the SSS of the target area, refind the target and then drop a weight/clump & buoy for the dive team to find and dive the target tomorrow. Another boat issue happened with some minor repairs required but the tools were not available on the boat So what do ya do??? Call BBB (better boat bureau), cell phone call to the uncle and the cousin shows up in 20 minutes with the solution and we are back in business.....gotta love it.
15 February why were so many divers on a boat???
WHAT A DAY......I am beat and feeling good.... 16-17 February Political round-up days. Making the stops at gov't offices and the Capital
to pay my respects and thank Palau for allowing us to do what we do
in their country!!! 18-19 February Clean up, pack up, load up day. Even bought gifts for others and I mean
shopping for others to give said gifts....the things I do for teamies....
20 February Day off....HA.....got to go in the jungles on Babelthaup with Jolie our archaeologist team member and her PhD mentor and wife and see 2,000+ year old village sites and earthworks and OMG is it incredible stuff and the views are spectacular!!!!! Jolie sent photos of the day:
21 February Alii, so last day here in Palau and I decide to wander on out to the Wildcat wing crash site by the airport to check on reports of roads and building near the site. Nothing of note to cause any issues with the recovery site JPAC has on
the books for later this year. Nice walk in to the Wildcat wing, wet swamp mud up to the ankles, not bad the SMSgt is loving it!!!
Now over thru the really swampy part to the engine, I am running
point and making a path he is cruising and enjoying the sweat.
YUP, looked exactly like this but the swamp grass was much taller,
like 5 feet tall and hid the nest much better. So when I parted the grass
and saw the nest and said OH SHIT..
Bluest Palau Skies, dob |
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