| P-MAN VII Update Tuesday, 8 March After running a bunch of errands, we headed out on Joe's boat directly south from Neco. Remember the German lighthouse, where we got skunked a total of three times last year? The skunk-factor total is now four. The German lighthouse is on the far east end of the island of Ngeruktabel. It's VERY photogenic. So much so, in fact, that parts of it were used extensively during the production of the Survivor Palau cycle. One benefit that Palau retained from that activity was extensive clearing of the path from the boat dock up to the lighthouse, which previously was in pretty bad repair, littered with fallen trees and small landslides, and generally pretty rough going. Now, it's been nicely cleared, and most of the fallen trees have been cut and moved to make the going easily passable. Last year we felt like Indiana Jones going up there. This year we felt like tourists. At the top of the hill, they've cleared some brush away from around the lighthouse and some of the giant cannons. But the hillside is just as steep and crumbly and loaded with poison trees as ever. That's where we spent nearly an hour sweeping north along the eastern side, looking for a piece of aluminum that Joe had stumbled across when he was up there working for the Survivor people. Didn't find it. Or anything else new. So we're now zero-for-four. We headed back to the boat and drove up to the Aimeliik area where we had previously searched for the "wing" that Einstein had tried to help us find a couple of days ago. The light, wind, and wave conditions were better this afternoon, but we still didn't find anything. Einstein says he'll check with his friend who lives in the adjacent mangroves, and will ask him to re-locate it and mark it for us. On the way back to Neco, some of us snorkeled in a rainstorm on a huge underwater junk pile near Neco. We cleaned up and headed back to the Airport, where Tommy and Nancy Doyle finally arrived, only one day and 30 minutes late. They were moderately boggled by the experience so far (neither of them has traveled much over the years), so we took them to Bem Ermii and treated them to a sleep-inducing milk shake. We had one, too. We got them checked into their hotel, and headed back to our digs.
- Reid |
