P-MAN XIV Update #11 - Ah, yes. The old "I-know-where-there's-an-intact-airplane-on-Ngeruktabel" trick. We fall for it every time! 28 March 2012 We did not find another airplane today. But I can tell you that the pilot of the newly located underwater Corsair is alive and well! His grandson says seeing photos of the airplane after all these years brought a tear to his eye. We'll have more details for you in future reports. Our plan was to hike with Melvin Toribiong near German Lighthouse (on Ngeruktabel) and find the airplane he told us about.
And Jolie Liston joined us. She is interested in ancient Palau, but has spent no time in the rock islands. Her area of experience is up on Babelthuap. She likes going with us because we take her places she doesn't get to. After the hike she told us she saw lots of ancient indications. This area needs to be surveyed. On another note, the archeologists that she is working with are trying to figure out why the rock islands were depopulated back in the ancient past. Their theory is climate change way back when.
Last year, Melvin took us out and we searched low in the valleys. A friend told him we had to look high on the ridge line. Then we hiked quite a ways.
Then on a hunters' trail and then Melvin said, "Now we go on a real hunter's trail." After we hiked much longer than Melvin thought the airplane should be, he called his buddy with his cell phone. (Here we are, deep in the Rock Islands. Thick jungle. And both Melvin and Joe are cell phoning to civilization.) His buddy said we had to look lower. However, if we went back the low way, Melvin said the hike out back to the boat would be horrible. So he offered to go hunting soon and locate the wreck himself. You might think this a bit strange, but this happens quite frequently. Hunters are looking for pigeons and fruit bats. If they come across something, they may take note of it or not, depending on how intent they are on hunting the small game. They may remember that they saw an airplane (and Melvin says it's an entire airplane), or they may not. We'll let Melvin do some more research. We've now been in this general area with four different people, on at least 10 occasions and have never even seen a rivet. But that's how it goes. This was a very nice hike, but only took half a day. It seemed wrong to have a post-hike cold fruit cup for so little effort, but we succumbed to our baser natures. We had lunch with Jolie at The Drop Off, washed the poison tree off of us, Pat wrote reports and Dan and I popped into town to run some errands. I'm still waiting for a package Rebecca sent me. When I left my stuff in Palau last year, my inventory said my three-liter Camelback bladder (you know, hydrate or die) was in Palau. No, it wasn't. And I asked Rebecca to send it out. She sent it right away, but as of 28 March, no water bladder. Went to Neco Marine to pick up more water and chat with Mandy about underwater photography. While we were doing all of this, the ROV team was visiting the local high schools, visiting the SeaBees and touring Koror. You'll have to go to their Facebook page for all the details. I have asked Jenny, the head marketing student, to make a submission to this Web site from the students' point of view. I just asked her, so it might take a day or two for your viewing pleasure. Tomorrow is THE day. Panther 4 is going to keep water where it belongs: out of Panther 4. And tomorrow the ROV team will accomplish their mission: deploy an underwater ROV halfway around the world and image something other than a pool drain. After this shake-out cruise, we look for clues to other aircraft crash sites. - Flip Colmer |
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