Worst Case Scenario (12/14)

The team, silhouetted, with Sabtang Island in the background. Photo by Amos.

Where expeditions go, Murphy's Law follows. And thus far we never had to replace the word "will" with "has". On that night, the 'has' was taken inside the context. In Chan's plain speak, it was only to err on the side of caution. 

When Chan received my delayed text at 9.46pm, Joseph was particularly excited that there was finally news. Chan had to calm him down and explained that the text was probably sent sometime ago. In any case he reasoned, the text just indicated intention, but not location, nor landing confirmation.

"Let's plan for the worst, and organize a big search tomorrow.",  Chan and Amos called everyone together.

What were the scenarios? If we can paddle, it would be a lost contact situation and all that was needed was re-establishing contact. If we can't paddle, we were drifting, presumably further from land as the hours went by. That required a boat on the water to get in range for transmitting the radio, or even a plane for fastest search.

They took out the big map and started plotting the timeline, calculated the current flow, tidal flow, and wind direction. All these will help establish a drift pattern and narrow the area of search. After an hour of discussion and planning, the team decided on a search plan.

At 6am the next morning, a spotter boat with 3 team members will search the waters around northern Batan Island. At 7am, another 3 members will search the waters off Sabtang Island. K and YH will stay at base to monitor the sat phone and radio, and YH will also ask about renting the Cessna plane parked at Basco airport for an aerial search.

This was all they could do. It had been a long night.

Dely (proprietress of Shanedel's, our base) thought otherwise. She called up her sisters at church and urged them to pray. Her prayers had been heard before, in a similar situation. Her faith is strong.

Chan lighted up and walked to the balcony. Half his mind was pushing out thoughts about news breaking, and the other half brought back memories of all the past experiences we had shared. 

He drew a heavy puff of his kretek and looked out from the balcony. He remembered how I had asked him to buy an extra packet of my favorite after taste, in case there was a delay. Later, Chan told me he placed his half-smoked kretek upright in a flowerpot overlooking the sea... 

Hang in there buddy.