The flag was returned at the Night of High Adventure October 28, 2017.
4-17-17
Hello All Fellow Adventurers,
Reporting to you from just off the Micronesia Island of Palau.
I arrived here about a week ago. Stayed at the Coral Reef Research Foundation which has an interesting group of scientists going out almost daily to study the reefs and doing water and current sampling. Palau, or at least the main city, Koror, is very small, 20,000 people on a series of small islands. Not a huge tourist spot, thankfully, but a wonderful place to visit. Went scuba diving which is spectacular. At their key dive spot, which is Blue Corner, saw at least a dozen sharks, lots of sea turtles to swim right up to, and tropical fish. On another day, went with a couple of the scientists, flying to an island about 30 minutes away. Spectacular view from the air. There were some major battles in WW2 fought here.
Then last Thursday joined the Research Vessel RV Roger Revelle. Now a week into it, we’ve got a few more days of pulling deep sea buoys from 3,000 to 5,000 meters deep. The buoys have been in the water for 9 months collecting currents, temp and salinity data on a minute by minute basis. We are launching and retrieving experiments at any time of the day or night. Today we had to use a small remote operated vehicle (ROV) to locate a sensor buoy anchored to the bottom that had not automatically released. We found it, nudged with the ROV until it freed up and floated to the surface.
The crew are really great to work with. We have marine biologists and engineers from Woods Hole, MIT, Oregon State and the Navy Research lab as well as some Navy reservists helping. From here head to New Zealand to meet friends and go fishing.
TO ADVENTURE! Cheers!
David. Grober 1068