17 March 2012
Alii & Yahoo! It's sooooo good to be back in Palau!
The ride over the big blue pond was uneventful from San Francisco to
Narita, Japan & direct to Palau.
Day 1 was full of little errands getting things set up for the arrival
of Pat Scannon on 15 March and Flip
Colmer on 19 March and 15 folks
from Stockbridge High School on 22 March and finally Derek
Abbey on
30 March.
Jolie Liston will be here sometime to play with us but she is mainly
working her other job as an archaeologist doing research work in
the Rock Islands.
Joe Maldangesang called to check in. He will stop
by later today or first thing tomorrow morning. Oh, and a new twist: Joe
no
longer
works for
Neco Marine like he has for the past 20 years. He is now a State
Conservation Officer for Ngarchelong, the state at the top tip of
Babeldaob, patrolling the crystalline
blue waters keeping folks safe and the conservation area pretty.
Joe, in his Ngarchelong State Conservation Officer's regalia.
The advance-team checklist:
- Unload the broom closet at the hotel (West
Plaza Malakal) where
they allowed us to store a few things and unpack them into the team "ready
room".
This is the double bedroom with kitchen and living area that Flip
and I will
share and be the base of operations. At last count there are 12 boxes,
2 backpacks, a metal detector and a bag full of 2-way radios that
we left in storage.
- Check for mold, mildew, powdered Gatorade that is now a solid block
of Gatorade, etc., and let all things air out. Now where is that
inventory list?
-
The 2012 Loaner from Mason Whipps. Sadly, Dan reports
that
the
van
Mason
lent us
during several past trips was vaporized in a solar flare
last year...or
something
like
that. Remember Han Solo's ship in the first Star Wars movie?
The Millennium
Falcon?
Well, in honor of Palau's
national bird
(the
Biib
-
pronounced kind of like "beep"),
we had named that beloved old
van
the
" Millennium Biib," because it was big
and sturdy and breathtakingly adequate.
This new van looks like
an Imperial transport,
all white and such -
4-wheel
drive,
no less.
We're gonna have to name it...
The original Biib
- Check in at Neco
Marine, our base of operations for dive boat
usage, and start our order of 1-gallon jugs of drinking
water, 15 to start.
We take back the empties and get refills as needed. The
suggestion is to not drink the tap water in Palau...even the locals
don't...so from morning coffee to filling up
your
Camelback water pac, the team goes through several
gallons per day.
- Go grocery shopping at Surangel & Sons grocery store (yes, part
of the family business in #3 above).
- Arrange the hotel "ready room" and request the coffee
maker, large conference room desk, start charging all
the radios, etc.
- No visits to government offices to include looking for
Flip's 70 pound gear bag via US mail since today
is a National holiday,
Youth Day.
- Stop at Coral
Reef Research Foundation and say Hi to Pat & Lori
Colin, see how our Side Scan Sonar is doing (they babysit it
for us during the year when most of us are back in the States)
and find that they have a very full office/lab. They have 3 research
teams working with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
(AUVs) working out of their facility for the next 10 days. Scripps
Institute,
California Polytechnic
University and University of Hawaii all have their
own AUVs. They're doing "research
stuff" with them...basically terrain-following
torpedoes with a lot of high tech gear encased
in a 5-foot-long, 6-inch-diameter, 5-knot tube
with a propeller on the end. More later as I figure
this one out.
Wall-to-wall exotic toys (autonomous underwater vehicles) in the lab
at Pat Colin's Coral Reef Research Foundation.
Just about time to head to Sam's
Bottom Time Bar & Grill
to have my first Red
Rooster beer of the year and catch the sunset, then off to dinner tonight
with old friend David McQuillen, of Cleared
Ground Demining at The
Taj.
Most excellent food and conversation!
Night after night after night...same boring old
sunset view
from Sam's Bottom Time Bar & Grill.
Time to dash to the
airport and pick up Pat Scannon...Pat arrives safe and sound SFO - Hawaii
- Guam - Palau.
- Dan O'Brien
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