Once a month Kwaj receives a large shipment of freight on an ocean-going barge, and today was the day. Most of the cargo is containerized, packed in the standard sealed shipping containers that have become a fixture in the shipping industry. However, some items come on what you might call pallets, except they're the same size as the containers. They have a floor, a solid end, and an end with a heavy steel frame. I saw a baggage loading truck, similar to the ones used in airports and two stepvans come in on these giant pallets. The containers are moved around by specialized vehicles that I'll call container handlers for lack of the formal term. These vehicles have a crane or arm of various designs from which a frame hangs. The frame has heavy (2 inch by 4 inch across) pointed oval pegs that fit into matching oval holes at the corners of the containers and then rotate to lock the container to the frame. At this point the container handler can lift the container and drive it to where it's needed. It goes without saying that these container-handling vehicles have to be pretty hefty. When the barge comes in, things get busy. The streets immediately around the dock and warehouse area are blocked off and anyone having business in the area needs to watch for loaded container handlers.

I happened to have business at the dock because the satellite phones at the outer islands are still out and I had to go back to Harbor Control to use the HF radio. Harbor Control is atop the Marine Administration building and looks a little like a control tower at an airport, with slanted glass windows on three sides. There are a number of radios and telephones with which movement in the harbor is controlled. A refrigerator and microwave give the room a homey touch and probably made extended stays a lot less arduous.

The satellite phone issue was only one of four messy administrative situations that consumed most of my day. Fortunately, it was a bright, sunny day (except for the three or four downpours). Right after one of the rains I biked from Building 1009 around the west end of the runway to the Operations Center. Along the way the air smelled really great, a combination of warm, wet pavement and freshly mowed grass. It continues to amaze me how it can rain so hard, and then clear up completely in a few minutes. Under the hot tropical sun the pavement is completely dry in an hour or two.

We have reached the half-way point in KWAJEX, and the next few days will see a lot of coming and going of personnel. The DC-8 team had a joint meeting of the old and new crews, and they pretty much filled our meeting room. The new radiosonde (weather balloon) crews have been trained in time for the old crews to head home. To date, the aircraft have flown less than the expected number of hours because there haven't been enough interesting weather events. At the Science Status meeting yesterday we discussed the need to be more aggressive about sending up aircraft even when the forecast isn't as promising as we'd like.

George Huffman