| P-MAN XV Update #07 - The President dives the Corsair. Lew departs. Technology rocks. March 26th Yesterday was supposed to be a meet and greet day for the Stockbridge ROV Team. At BentProp, we make sure we say hello every trip to government officials who have a say in what we do out here. And/or those that are really interested to hear about what we are doing. Last year, Stockbridge did the same thing with a trip to The Capitol to meet the President, to our embassy to meet our Ambassador and Bureau of Arts and Culture to let them know their part in our searches. But since a day on the water is better than any day in the office, the President of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, Jr., came to our boat to see the ROV team and their vehicles and the number two at the U.S. Embassy, Tom Daley, joined us right at the start of the day's mission. Both wanted to dive the Corsair which was where the team got to test their vehicles.
"I think we need a bigger boat." This quote from the movie Jaws fit our situation. We got the biggest dive boat we could, but with all of the students, all of BentProp and our visitors and guests, it was quite crowded. One of the biggest debrief items of the day was how reducing headcount on the boat will solve most of the organizational issues the students faced.
We got to the Corsair and the students threw their vehicle overboard. It worked perfectly. Thrusters thrusted. Steering steered. Floats floated. And no leaks. The towed camera array was put in and it still needs a bit more testing as there was an imperfection in the video pictures. But the real star of the day was the fourth grade ROV that has now successfully swum in Palauan waters. These kids recently competed in a competition and took 1st and 2nd places against middle schoolers. Yes, I said fourth grade.
The President showed up in his own boat at about 1130. He met with the students, they explained their vehicles, they gave him some swag from Grand Valley State University and Stockbridge High School (The President is a graduate of GVSU. But I don't think he misses Michigan winters.) and then we went diving. The President dove on the B-24 we found off of Aimeliik a number of years ago. That was the year Tommy Doyle (Casey Doyle's father, Jimmie Doyle's son) came out to dive the airplane his father died in during World War Two. He expressed interest in seeing this Corsair as it is one of the nicest aircraft wrecks in the world. It's sitting at the bottom of the ocean intact, except for the damaged oil cooler that was the reason the airplane lost power and had to ditch. All the divers geared up and down we went. The President had a great visit, and so did Tom Daley from our embassy.
Eric Terrill showed up from Scripps in his own boat and had the opportunity to tell the President what he was doing in Palau and the future plans for visits. He then dove the Corsair one last time to take more photos. His group is building a 3D image of the Corsair as a tool for digital preservation. In the future, someone can make a visit to the Corsair and compare what they see against the 2013 3D model to see how it's holding up. This technology can be used to study reefs, wrecks or anything someone may want to make comparisons on.
When the President left to go back to the office, and Eric left to go back to his office, the students finished their work with the towed camera array (towfish) and we headed to port. A great first day on the water for them and ahead of schedule as the meet and greets took place on the water instead of in offices. We conducted a debrief with the students once their gear was put away. But in the middle of that two BentProppers went out with Scripps to check on a SSS target that we called 'logs and trees', but turned out to be long iron beams. Then they helped place an ocean sensor in the harbor waters. Back to the hotel for all of us, got cleaned up and had a farewell dinner for Lew with the students as well.
We do great at picking up people at the airport, but those 0200 to 0400 departures is a bit of a stretch for us so we let the hotel take Lew away. His room was empty this morning so either he's at another hotel or he made it out on the first part of his journey home. 27 March A lovely day on the water. We went as a joint mission with both Stockbridge and Scripps in the morning and then just with Stockbridge in the afternoon. Discovery Channel Canada sent a video crew (Otv) to report on the Stockbridge students and what they are accomplishing out in Palau. Pat and Joe split off this morning to visit Governor Vicky Kanai of Airai State. Another of our meet-and-greets. We've known Governor Kanai for many years, since back when she worked for the Bureau of Arts and Culture. Dan, Derek, Casey and I went to Neco and headed out with Evan from Scripps and some of the Stockbridge team. We only had some of the team as they decided there were way too many people on the boat yesterday, and some of them didn't have very much to do. So three of the 10 stayed behind to do marketing and journalism tasks while the rest went hunting. We took Evan and his hexacopters to Aimeliik to look for a TBM Avenger. Sometime last decade, we were shown a wing of an Avenger that ended up deep in a mangrove. We've looked around this wing a bit but never found another piece of airplane. There are stories of an Avenger in a cove but searching there turned up bupkis. Our thoughts were that since we saw Corsair parts in a mangrove from a helicopter, maybe the hexacopter could see some Avenger pieces. Evan flew two missions off of the boat and we had a recovery team on shore. He flew over the area the Avenger wing is in and actually saw something that we'll need to investigate.
Back to Neco Marine, loaded up SCUBA gear and headed out for the first mission of The Stockbridge ROV. We went to a lovely cove that we once found a few aircraft parts in. Shannon Scott from Scripps used his handheld sonar in there a few days ago and 'saw' a few possible interesting targets. The area is sheltered on most sides, the bottom is about 75 feet deep and the interesting feature is that it has steep sides from the islands that border the cove to the middle. So in Dinar (The ROV was named last year.) went. Down to 84 feet and once again The Stockbridge ROV Team imaged the ocean bottom half a world away from home. However, the ROV developed a control issue. The students brought her up and did some troubleshooting. Their first thought was that the ROV had leaked again. They opened up the vehicle and it was bone dry. They worked through some other thoughts about the problem and then called the mission so that they could troubleshoot at the hotel. But not before they started working with the towfish. Pete Haber, (Hey!! Not everyone gets 'mentioned in dispatches'. Flip's Chelsea friend and fellow Delta pilot (remember, the only airline to ever buy tickets on.)) said the kids should make some kind of wide area search platform. Maybe a towed camera array. I mentioned it to the ROV team and they created one. It has three cameras on it that feed to topside and their low tech solution once they find something is to quickly play out more line, let the towfish sink to the bottom and stop the boat quickly. Then the ROV can swim down to take a look prior to a diver going down. The towfish should swim level in the water as it is being towed by the boat. Forward motion, center of gravity of the vehicle, pull point from the tow rope all have to be balanced out. That just means a little tow time to sort it out. But you don't have to do that if the cameras aren't working properly. And they aren't working properly weirdly. On the surface and down to about 30 feet, the cameras are crystal clear. Then they get fuzzy, and then they don't work. Bring them back up and they work again. Hmmmmmm? Brand new cameras, all experiencing the same issue? Hmmmmmmm? Bob Richards is making a phone call tonight and hopes FedEx can help the manufacturer out here. We headed back to Neco, unloaded the boat and held our debrief. These kids are doing great. Of course they want everything to work perfectly out of the box. And of course things never work out that way but they are working through the issues with 'grace under fire.' Quick clean up and out to The Taj for a BentProp dinner. Sometimes it's nice when it's just the family at the dinner table. As always, we let the owner Robert order for us. But we've learned how to gauge how much food we're going to get. Rather than let Robert go hog wild, we order either Robert, Robert Medium or Robert Lite if we're only snacking. After dinner, over to Scripps to review more SSS and camera footage. Then early to bed for most of us. - Flip Colmer |
- Main Site
- Expeditions
- Our Story
- Miscellany
