February 20, 1965 
Dear Maryanna: 
Well here we are nearing the end of the first half of our journey. 
Things have gone very well. This ship is a real jewel and I hope that 
Fred draws it for the next trip. The XO will be new next time probably 
or they may delay Mr. Zogg's departure until the Hitchiti comes back in 
June. They have apparently been notified that they may take out the next 
trip'. You probably know all this already anyway. 
The vacutainer and needles worked out very well for the larger birds , 
but not so good for the smaller ones. I am recommending that vacutainer Qcr°5 
holders, needles and the vacutainers be purchased for the upcoming trip^ 
(ysk 3±»e for the smaller birds I recommend the use of the old system with a 
hypodermic. The vacutainers should replace the use of the centrifuge 
tubes as they are less likely to crack in the spinner and they can be used 
with the hypodermic needle on the smaller birds to hold the blood. You 
should contact Fred and see how many large birds he intends to process 
so that the appropriate number of disposable vacutainer needles can be 
ordered. We still have about 6 holders and he should have at least a 
couple of dozen on hand incase he loses some like I did. 
Up to this time, we have banded 26997 birds. We could have had 
alot more but the moon as usual hampered our work on the better islands. 
I am sending the bi-weekly schedules to Ely for forwarding. Doug is 
sending the banding records to Jane. 
Personnel have worked out very well. Huber is somewhat the pet of 
the Pacific Project I see and I am just as badfas the rest I guess. It 
is so hard to get mad at him. He banded 3507 birds in one night on How¬ 
land Island. Guess that is some kind of record. Merrill is the only one 
that has really bugged me and I chewed him out one evening and he pouted 
for about 24 hours. Oh well so goes the life of a leader. 
I can't say enough about the ship. The Captain bends over backwards 
to help us. They even send in food from the galley if the boat is making 
the runs near mealtime. Tell Fred that they even haul the navigation lights 
around on shore and don't bother us with them at all. 
We have had terribly rough surf on this trip and have really banged 
up the motors. We had a cream out at Baker and the Polaroid camera came 
out of its waterproof case and sank. The raft went completely over. We 
ppent one whole afternoon trying to launch the boat at Baker and the crew 
was thrown out each time. Hull Island was bypassed because of heavy surf. 
We did blow out the back end of a new boat bedause of to much air expansion. 
The Hitchiti sent a beach p*rty ashore at Enderbury. They seemed to 
enjoy themselves and only one bunch got stoned. 
I will write you another letter before departing Pago Pago. Why don't 
you let Fred read this. 
Urine 
