P-MAN XVI Update #03 - The jungle isn't always green - sometimes there's red tape

17 March 2014

The decision at the end of the evening yesterday was that we would spend much of today revisiting some known B-24 sites to further document them. The reason for this is to verify our facts and to ensure that we hadn’t made any mistakes in mixing up the identification of these sites. It would be a little odd if we had already found the plane that we're looking for. Additionally, we would search some of the areas around these sites to gather data. We've been seeing some interesting man-made stuff in both new and old aerial photos from WWII and weren’t sure what it was. That was the plan.

So we met early for breakfast and briefed the day. Before we headed out on the boat to these locations, we had to meet with a couple of folks to ensure that our permits were in order. We verified our boat was locked and timed out the day. Before we got too far we were contacted by the office of Palauan President Tommy Rememgesau. The President would like to meet today at 4 p.m. Well, that made things tight, but we should still be able to get things done. You don’t just ask the head of a nation to reschedule for a better time. First stop was to the Historical Preservation Office. They handle a number of our permits. Sadly, despite all of our prep and lead time, much of our information had not arrived to their office. This turned out to be a reoccurring theme throughout the day. We naturally blamed Flip, because he is not here to defend himself. Additionally, there had been additional requirements created. Standard administrative stuff (we need a document from this organization that is signed by this person…). So off we went to hunt down some more paperwork and make some phone calls. After our stop at the office of one of the governors, we again discovered that there was missing paperwork (again Flip was cursed without him knowing. I hope he doesn’t read this.). So off to the print shop to get some documents printed and, of course, the printer was down (Are you catching up on the other theme?).

About this time we discovered that the van we were using might be a little too dangerous. There were some fumes leaking into the cab and apparently that is bad. So Dan arranged for the van to be worked on. Luckily Pat and Lori Colin agreed to let us use their van for the day. The van needed to be dropped off close to the US Embassy, so we made an effort to stop in to see the Ambassador since we were in the area and conducting our political glad-handing. Turns out the Ambassador wasn’t in, though, because the incoming Ambassador hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate, but we still managed to check in with the powers that be at the embassy. We also stopped in to visit the Civic Action Team, which for this cycle is being manned by the Air Force.

We eventually figured out that we weren’t going to make it out to visit the sites we planned for the day. So after a lot of running around we made it over to see the President. The President was happy to see us again and offered his support for the mission. After a long day of running around and meeting the powers that be, we finished the day at Kramer’s for dinner. No corned beef on the menu, but it was still great. Tomorrow the plan is for an early rise to execute the plan that was supposed to happen today, with some more administrative stuff in the afternoon. We should be getting wet and dirty, though!

- Derek Abbey, with some photos by Sean Richardson

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