Started off with a home made breakfast served at the Bethel SAR followed by a briefing. Traveled 22 miles down river on the ice road to the search site. Met by the local villagers that were already working on clearing ice. I would guess we had around 100 people throughout the day helping. We where even visited by the local State Representative and his wife that also was involved in the approval for our travel reimbursement. Now I don’t believe we would see that in our lower 48. Had many challenges to work through. They had to clear more ice off for us to use the trailer that we used for keeping computer equipment warm. We hung the sonar off the back of trailer down through the ice to be towed by a four-wheeler 3-5 mph. It was to bumpy to get good images and them one of the villagers suggested the large sleds they had they put under the tires which worked out very well. As we ran into other hurdles trough out the day the locals always came up with a way to fix it. It was truly an honor to work with these people as we jumped many hurdles today. We worked into the dark then packed up for the 45 minute ice road trip back to Bethel. When we arrived back at the headquarters they had a potluck supper laid out with many dishes. I happen to like fish so I fit in well and enjoyed. I will review what we have for images tonight and make a plan for tomorrows search.
Ice road to search site
Search Site, ariel photo
Search site
Bob’s ice sled put to the challange
Bob’s ice sled at work
Sonia Clark from Canada and Alaska State Trooper Wood. He was my point of contact to make this happen.
My office on wheels
The sonar off the back and down through the ice to be towed near the bottom.
Clearing ice for the sonar
