The Search for the Grunion Blog

Status Report Aug 19

Art Aug 18 3:47 EST

We are anchored off the old pier pilings in Kiska Harbor checking data. Some are stretching their legs ashore. (We did receive an OK for this from the Refuge manager back in May.)

We will get underway for more survey at 1730 local time (Seattle time minus 3 hours) and do more Arare/CH survey. If the weather permits we may take one more Grunion run.

On discussing our sonograms of Grunion, the consensus of my crew is we are not agreed on which side she is resting.

Art Aug 18 4:52 EST

We have redundancy in 3 sonograms from the North and another redundancy in 3 shots from the south. Or, the uphill shots produce one shadow and the downhill shots produce a different shadow.

Due to terrain, I am reluctant to fly at low altitude uphill and downhill and also on a west to east pass. The only safe route is an east to west pass and even there, we are cabling out steadily to maintain 20-25m altitude.

The answers will have to come with an ROV.

Art Aug 18 6:20 pm EST

Great. We will look forward to seeing all of you including the pilots. We are very flexible and can schedule our underway time for a demo as you desire.

We are using Seattle minus three hours as Kiska time because that makes sunrise at 0630 and sunset about 2030.

Art Aug 18 6:27 pm EST

The light stuff is shadow and the dark stuff is target.

We can have a good discussion on Sunday. Some of my team can see the drain ports and bow planes.

Art Aug 19 11:26 am

We are finishing the Arare/CH area and plan to make one more Grunion pass before heading for Adak

Pete:

Here are some photos from our visit to Kiska. We finished the survey in near harbor waters and are now approaching the Grunion for another high resolution pass. Good to hear about the Wahoo and thanks for the Arare photo.

We got a copy of the great Globe article on the Grunion and Arts crew noticed that they had the company name wrong by a hair. It would be good to give the globe notice its “Williamson” and Associates.

All is well here, see you Sunday.

Collapsed Military Shelter

Aquila in foggy Kiska harbor next to Nojima Maru ruins.

Wartime Japanese coal stove

Rusting vise

Unexploded ordinance warning

Kale and the Aquila

West side of Kiska Island

Ruins

Shells

Shell Damage

Bruce:

Here is how a one dollar purchase from an antique shop triggered this entire effort.

I recieved a note from a Richard Lane, Lt Col, USAF, who told me that in 1995 he purchased a wiring diagram of a winch that was on the Kana Maru. In an effort to authenticate it he posted it on the Internet and got a response from Yutaka who in turn described the confrontation between the Kana Maru and the Grunion.

Richard knew he was on to something and got COMSUBPAC to post the information.

The rest is history