| P-MAN XIV Update #19 - Dodging the ciguatera bullet, and rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers 05 April 2012 Like the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, we had a plan. The ROV team is on Peleliu today touring the battlefields. We were going to take our newly rejuvenated side-scan sonar unit and beam the east side of Babelthuap in search of a single-engine fighter witnessed to go down just outside of the channel. If the weather would not permit that, we would do an interview day. When Joe contacted us, he said the winds and tide would make for some large rolling waves and not be good for our little SSS boat. So Pat took the time to get out a report on the Corsair and we all helped by checking our own emails. Once Pat was done, we started making phone calls. The first one was to a Palauan elder Rich (Taylor's Dad) met through walking in the early mornings. He is an advisor to the government and has held a number of elected positions. He said come by between one and two in the afternoon as he had a medical appointment at the hospital in the morning. As we were making more phone calls, with no added appointments for the day, someone from this elder's family called to say he was going to the hospital because he was really sick. So our appointment canceled. Then we filled our evening calendar with dinner appointments for the rest of the trip with people we really need to touch base with while we are here. Then wouldn't you know it, time for a late lunch. We had various forms of barracuda and were told that the ones we ordered, were not poisonous. Isn't after you eat something potentially poisonous a bit late to bring that detail to the surface? Seems the large barracudas eat some sort of algae (or something ocean borne) that makes their flesh toxic [see Ciguatera]. If you put a dime on the flesh of a poisonous barracuda, it will turn black. That is something we were told. We are tourists, after all. Then it seemed that heading out to do random interviews just wasn't in our hearts for this day. But milkshakes were. That's my last one for the trip. But I made it a healthy one: strawberry. Which Derek pointed out tastes more like butterscotch. We are back at the house, taking care of admin stuff. We do have two events tonight. The first, we're riding the ROV team's coattails as they've been invited to join the President at a reception for them at The Taj. After that, we're having movie night! Alien. The original "They can't hear you scream in space" movie. Tomorrow, back to the Corsair to continue inventory work for The Bureau of Arts and Culture and to the B-24 so Suzanne Finney can start keeping track of it as well. So if nothing more exciting happens between now and tomorrow evening, this is it. - Flip Uh-oh...wait, there's more. The President's reception was a splendid affair. The President, his Vice President, Minister of Education and Chief of Staff all attended. And so did the U.S. Ambassador. The U.S. used to only have a consulate here, but was upgraded two years ago to an embassy. This ambassador, Helen Reed-Rowe is the first one assigned to Palau. Both the President and the Ambassador gave heartfelt speeches to the students. I was glad to ride their coattails to this event.
Movie night was canceled on account of nice evening weather. Maybe a couple of nights from now. - Flip Colmer |
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