n rmic-e thev may not be quite as enthusiastic but they certainly 
I 11 do a (rood job Right now the fellowrjwho are running the boats are becoming 
lairly well expiri^ced (at first it was really wild) and they seem to en 3 oy 
-ighting the surf. They don't seem to mind getting wiped out too much. 
0 n a second cruise you might have to bend a little bit to please thej about 
ertain idiocyncracies they have but it will certainly be worth the effoit.^ Th 
i 0 laundry but we have been hanging it up which is a sys e ... . 
,;V;1 to a great deal of trouble. The nice thing about it is the fact th4 
.ye some control over where they are hung and can take them down and distribute 
.hem as we want. With this system we haven't ended up with an eno.mouo p - 
.aundry on someone 1 s 
„ l0 „°to tiriiland e ! bC OB ituck e h^°no8e a lnto (he boat channel we were 
ship and doesn't get a bit shook about coming in clobe. 
The radar on this ship has been out since the day we left Pea ^ e ^J°y the 1 " 16 
navigation lights we used last trip have th e # Ltterie6 up to 1000 yards down the 
ship sends in a bunch of guys who carry the batteries up to ±wj 7 
beach to the lights.. .with no complaints. If the radar haa ^ g 
told us they would have been perfectly happy to have the lights .ogeJie. 
right angle. As it is, with the radar nonfunctional, the only thing they have 
to navigate by are the lights we have* 
We were unable to land on Hull Island at the bird 
■nirf sweeping across the channel and pounding along the fuH iength of the sh r 
Ztl “H v jagged coral reef that is there. We could probably have gott% in 
bht the boats would habe been ground to shreds with the surf as it was. 
r was very glad we didn't try to land there because we would have go*tu£ cre “^ 
(rSZ* to gft out! Again, as on several other islands, the wind was strong from 
the northeast so that it swept down the entire length of the " °"' .wj."'."of 
to the village and landed there to look around and check on the feasibi i / f 
"ortaging to the lagoon and then going down to the bards by boat. .hat ended 
abruptly when the raft we were using went boom and a three rjft 
appeared in the side of it. The poor guys who padd.ea the par y ^ 
out through the surf, which picked up after we landed, go. umeared 7 i 
-eal big ones before they managed to get clear. Anyhow, wi.h aJ 
that Sd happened we said to hell with Hull and moved cn to Bxrnxe Island. 
Both of our rafts (brand new ones, yet) and our motors have really g’een 
clobbered on this trip. If we hit much more bad surf the one -maxnxng^aft, 
and the one motor that still runs good probably won t maxce x * • didn’t 
the motors was * filled with sand when we got smeared on Baker Island whxch dxdn 
do it a great deal of goc-d. 
This ship doesn't mind using the whaleboat they launch it rapidly ^7 
hatf 'already said they will use it both at Christmas and Palmyra 
take a little bit of the strain off of cur boats and motors bu 
be enough. 
Well that's as much of the rosy picture as I can give now. ' A -is letter 
,, ave to be mailed early tomorrow so that you can get it right away. J-he next mai 
wollVgo o«C of I ago :-ago until February 23. Will have ajprogress report an that 
mail# />- ~ S f / ' -v // - 
