Actual position at 1400 EDT, 16°20′ N 161°11′ W making a blistering 9.4 knots. Weather is good with a typical scattered deck of cumulus clouds at est. 1,500 feet. Seas are two to three foot swells.

The day’s business was a meeting with the Phoenix team, primary contractors, about setting up the search grid for the AUV and planning the missions. At this time they are figuring on beginning with four to six hour missions to get the feel of the environment and do micro-planning. Once the lay of the land (sea floor) is understood, they’ll go to 12 hour missions which is much more efficient. It takes the same amount of time to recover, dump, change the batteries, load the new program, and re-launch whether the mission is 2 hours or 12, so it’s a lot better to run to the end of the battery life if possible. The ship will shadow the AUV to keep track of it and make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to do during all missions.

At this time the estimated arrival on site is about midnight July 11, but of course this is subject to change as weather, wind, sea state, and so on combine in different ways.

Because they are anticipating arriving at night, the first order of business will be to do a mapping run with the SeaBeam standing out from the island. You do not want to tangle with that reef at night (see Norwich City). Then as dawn breaks they will be able to stand in and do more runs with the SeaBeam and start setting up the AUV.

Actual position at 1800 EDT, 18° 52′ N 159° 30′ W. Sea state 2 (6 foot waves). Making 8.3 knots. Good weather. Good
progress.

It’s a quiet day aboard K-O-K. Everyone is settling into shipboard routine, reading, reviewing equipment, testing this and that, working on video stuff, and generally chilling after the last few intense days in Honolulu. The seas have moderated, steaming along at a good rate with a nice smooth ride.

Home stretch. TIGHAR photo by Laurie Rubin.

The Discovery crew is going to everyone on the ship doing I.D. work for set up: Start camera, person looks into camera, states name, title (if any), position aboard (Chief Engineer, SSI technician, whatever), so when the editors start working with the footage at the end of the expedition they’ll know who everyone is.

Ric is working on depths and reef profile stuff for a meeting with the technical teams tomorrow to start discussing the specifics of the search and how they plan to execute the various phases. It may seem a bit late, but this is actually the best time to work on this information and refine what has been a general scheme into an hour-by-hour checklist. Now that the frenzy of getting ready is done and they are at sea, everyone is going to get a bit more sleep.

Seventy-five years ago today, the world learned that Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra had failed to arrive at Howland Island. In the last in-flight radio message heard by the Coast Guard, she said she was “on the line 157 337 – running on line, north and south.” Reasoning that she had flown south on that line toward the islands of the Phoenix Group, the U.S. Navy quickly decided to send the battleship USS Colorado from Honolulu to search along that line, but logistical necessities prevented the ship from sailing until the next day. In an ironic historical parallel, logistical necessities have also prevented R/V K-O-K from departing Honolulu until July 3rd.

An observer from the Republic of Kiribati must accompany the expedition. He’s coming from Kiritimati (Christmas Island) and there’s only one flight a week – on Tuesdays. As soon as he gets here we’ll leave. The current estimate is that we’ll cast off at 14:00 (2pm) local time.

This morning was spent resolving some technical issues and this afternoon we “bunkered” for the trip with 46,000 gallons of fuel. Everything is now set to go — or rather, whatever nearly-insurmountable difficulties remain to be resolved have not yet become apparent. :-)

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Malcom Griffiths, Ric Gillespie, and Wolfgang Burnside	Wolfgang Burnside & Ric Gillespie	The Niku VII technical team

At about 3:30 p.m. Honolulu time the ship cast off and they were on their way.

Setting off for Nikumaroro. TIGHAR photo by Pat Webb.

Sunday, July 1st, started with a press event dockside hosted by expedition sponsor FedEx. Representatives of local and national media heard remarks delivered by expedition leader Ric Gillespie, TIGHAR member Col. Pat Webb, Discovery Channel Executive Producer Brooke Runnette, and Alexander “Sandy” Shor, Associate Dean of the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Afterward, the film crews were given tours of the expedition ship R/V Ka’Imikai-O-Kanaloa whose Hawaiian name, we have learned, means Heavenly Searcher of the Seas. (How cool is THAT?)

The AUV and ROV were put in the water for the first time to test the launch and recovery systems. Everything worked fine and it was exciting to see the vehicles in their natural element. SSI technician Wolfgang Burnside allowed Ric to “fly” the ROV long enough to get the feel of the controls. Ric found the vehicle powerful, agile and easy to fly.

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The Bluefin 21 AUV comes out of the hangar.	Deploying the AUV	The AUV and ROV go for a swim together.