TIGHARs et al.
Well folks, I and several other TIGHARs are off to Nikumaroro this week for another round of exploration and searching. This trip is being conducted in conjunction with Betchart Expeditions which is a little bit different than past expeditions, but the way I see it is that we have to take advantage of any opportunity to get out there that presents itself. In a way, I think that the larger group may provide some benefits in that we increase the number of man hours per day on the island, which helps make up for the short duration of the visit - about 8 days.
The TIGHAR researchers / veterans going this year include myself and
Tom King
Dawn Johnson
John Clauss
Kenton Spading
Joe Cerniglia
Tom and Maria Roberts
Art Rypinski
There are also several folks who were on the Betchart expedition in 2015 that overlapped with Niku VIII that are going back again this year, so we have a pretty good core of experience TIGHARs participating.
Tom King, with Tom Roberts and Art Rypinski assisting, will be leading several shore based projects over the days we'll be at Niku including work at the NW tip, Village, and the 7 Site. Kenton Spading will be leading work projects in Aukairame near the Baureke passage. Joe Cerniglia will be doing some bottle research in the village. John Clauss will be working water based projects including some metal detecting in and around the Tatiman Passage, some light ROV work with an Open ROV unit, and I'll be working with folks who want to dive some targets on the reef that we'd like to explore further. We will also be assisting some divers from Woods Hole to locate, recover, and replace some sensors they placed several years ago.
There are many, many details that have gone into the planning of this expedition that I'm not going to bother you all with, but suffice it to say that we're going to do our best to deploy the best technology available (including some new and different search techniques) to us on the targets we think are the most interesting given the amount of time we have available. There is never enough time, resources, or technology available, but we do the best job that we can in a very tough location.
If we weren't optimistic that we'll discover something that advances the project, we wouldn't go. While we can hope for a fantastic conclusive discovery, usually we don't know what it is that has been discovered until after we get it back to the US and analyze what it is and how it might be related.
I'm going to try to provide Ric with daily updates via Sat Phone to post on the TIGHAR website, or maybe down thread in this topic, so look for those to start later in the week. I and several others are leaving tonight for Fiji as an advance team, and we'll have internet connectivity for the next couple of days until the boat sails and we get out of range.
I'm looking forward to this expedition and the results it will provide. Nikumaroro is truly a magical place, here's hoping it reveals more of its secrets to us this time.
Thanks to all of you for your support.
LTM
Andrew