| P-MAN XVI Update # 24 - Anchors 05 April 2014 Rick Smith is here! He arrived at 0140 along with his girlfriend Josie. Rick has been in the field with us before, but has had a couple of years off. His interest in MIAs though is strong and during those off years he went with History Flight to Tarawa to look for missing servicemembers there. He's an experienced tech diver and his skills are going to be put to good use. We briefed at 0900 for a split mission today. Pat, Bill Belcher, Derek and Jo Schumacher would go to Police Hill along with the 60 Minutes crew. Everyone else would be on the water trying to get eyes on all the good targets that were discovered during the SSS review at Scripps/UDel. Eric and Shannon from Scripps would join Joe, Nell, Dan, Dave, Casey and me for another day on the water. The Police Hill team reported that Jo got a great tour of the area where we think her uncle is. They got off the hill sometime after noon and stopped at The Bridge Bem Ermii for burgers and shakes and enjoyed a great view under the KB bridge. Our boat team dove on four targets about halfway to Peleliu. Nothing but widely spaced coral outcroppings. Nothing person-made (Damn you, Bill Belcher). The ocean bottom there resembles a desert more than an ocean bottom. But at least it was only 70 feet deep instead of the 100+ we've been doing. And the visibility was much better than where we've been.
The boat team then went to the southern side of Ngeruktabel and we dove a wall and a future void area for the AUV. The AUV hasn't gone down here yet, but it is in the plan for Scripps/UDel. Although we saw pretty fish on this dive, and the water was a lot clearer, we did not see any man-made objects. We had one more target to look at on the way home. Andy from Scripps said there was a pipe-looking thing right off the dock in the harbor. In about 100 feet of water. So three of us went down to it and it turned out to be another large mooring system that was put in by the Imperial Japanese Navy. It consists of two very large anchors, a very large mooring ball and very large chain connecting them all together. I believe these systems were big enough to hold a battleship in place.
Back a few years, the USNS Safeguard, a Navy salvage ship, came to Palau with a Navy MDSU team (Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit). They were tasked with bringing up an anchor that was a hazard to navigation in the harbor. When they started to bring it up from the muck, that's when they found out it was the entire mooring system with chain, another anchor and the mooring ball. Let me see if I can find a good picture of that. Okay, rather than do that, here's the link to our report back in 2009. One of those previous anchors is now in a park by the water on the north side of Malakal. Back to port, cleaned up, out to dinner, no mission scrub with Scripps and everyone went to bed early. Pat and Derek went to the airport to pick up Robin Hogg. She is bringing the ashes of her father, Bill Cantrell, a Marine F-4U pilot who was based on Peleliu, back to Palau. He passed away last November and his last request was to have his ashes scattered over the waters around Peleliu. That will take place in a few days. Typhoon update. We're going to get lots of rain. It started at midnight, and there's some wind, but nothing we can't deal with. Once the red flags in the harbor go up all boat ops cease. (Just to give everyone a warm fuzzy, I'm writing this Sunday morning the 6th. The red flags are up, the Stockbridge Team scrubbed the day and all the teams are just hanging out doing stuff. But if I give it all away now, what will I have to write about tonight? - Flip All photos © Flip Colmer2014 |
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