wave wash materials for long and we will have a problem in drying 
off during these winter months when the high winds rapidly chill 
off a person in wet clothing. It would require about 5 trips to 
bring ashore all the food and equipment which we would like to have 
ashore in any one period. We learned from the mapping crew that 
most other groups which come ashore on these islands use an LST 
with a helicopter. They advised us that this day was the first in 
weeks that we could have gotten in at the small boat landing and that 
we were very lucky or perhaps unlucky to have arrived at Laysan this 
day and gone boldly in without realizing that this was an exceptional 
day for this time of the year. The LST, though a little slower than 
our ATF is much more stable in the rough seas. This would be highly 
desireable from the standpoint of getting any work done aboard. We 
would then not he so much at the mercy of the ocean which even though 
the sky were clear and the weather generally good could easily be 
roughened by storms, hundreds of miles away, and prevent us from 
getting into or back from any one of these islands. The conditions 
of traveling in the small rubber boat make it absolutely unfeasible 
to even consider gsing back and forth each day between the ship and 
the shore. 
12 February 19 65 
In spite of the cold this past night, proving that our single 
blankets are quite inadequate at this time of year, we at least did 
not find ourselves constantly awakened by the rocking of our bunks, 
as I have had occur every night aboard the ship. The sea has stirred 
28 
