Thursday, December 30, 2010

South Pacific Survey 21th July 1951

Spent most of the morning writing and the afternoon on the reef just outside the door with goggles on. The number of fish in the lagoon has to be seen to be appreciated and can only be seen from underneath.

Had a little nap in the afternoon, to get ready for a little party the Salters are having for us and as we are probably flying tomorrow on photography, we will have to stick to Ginger Ale. The party was quite a success, the native girls doing the hula, which was not quite as good to look at as the Bora Bora. They did it here in dresses which probably detracted from the dance considerably.

After a very nice supper, I retired, as we have to get up at 6am.

Editors note: This is the last entry in the diary-I presume he got home OK!
At last my job here is done. My next task if I get round to it is to gather all the posts together into one Microsoft Word file and maybe make this available for download from my CAD site.

I found a letter from Geoff Wells, who was Engineering Manager at the time, (he has written a book too!) which advised Lauthala Bay RNZAF that the plane was due back on 3rd of August, and to give the plane a wash down etc. It was to remain there until 29th of August, so I imagine Cliff would have gone home by other means. I am intending to read Maurice McGreal's book, "Civil Aviation in New Zealand" which will probably detail this out.

The only other things I can think of to do are to scan things like his Pilot's Licence and so on.
Any other photos I can rake up might get posted too.

I can now go back and label some of the pictures that I was unable to title at the time of posting.

I found as well a sheet labelled Air Department, which listed travelling expenses for the various islands. You might be amused to know that Aggie Grey's in Western Samoa clocked in at 25 shillings per day. That is about $2-50!

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