Ben Oostdam's |
 page 50 |
Hawaii I I I - oh! early 1963 |
On January 30, 1963, I talked briefly with Ralph about getting an airphotograph of S.W. Maui, at which time he told me that Ted went along with most of what we had discussed yesterday. I drove to Marine Advisors to meet Dick Greenbaum who might need some diving help when they do Kaanapali on Maui, and let me use their Barber Point and Keahou Bay wave records. Next, I had a chat with Sally in the diving shop who didn't think finding diving buddies would be too hard, briefly saw Ricky Grigg about airhose, then had a long talk with Townsley about topo of flows reaching into the sea and resettlement of corals after flows and was
offered the loan of his compressor, and later met Ron Church who had just won the International U.W. Photographer of the Year Award. Also went to the library and read H.J. Wiens new (1962) book on atoll environment and ecology.
I spent the morning of January 31 in the lab learning to make acetate peels; after lunch Doak Cox walked in and told me how wrong I had been to confront them with a "fait accompli", that my proposal did not fit in their project and was beyond my capability, that the University did not want to entrust their boat, car and equipment to me because I was too rough on it, and that he had called Dr. Fager (Chair of SIO oceanography department) about it suggesting that I return to Scripps rightaway. He asked me to think the matter over for a half an hour and then meet with Ralph and himself. I was pretty mad and wrote up a defense which I discussed with them in some detail later. In summary, I felt that I was made the scapegoat for some bad feelings generated last year by Fran's handling of some situations, e.g. using the full per diem costs; I brought out that I had been put in charge of the last 2 weeks of June 1962 when we had "done" Maui and Hawaii at a cost of $ 23 per profile as opposed to $ 64 the first time around and anticipated $ 32
on next month's scheduled survey - this included repairs on a broken cast-iron differential I had incurred on Maui using a rental car. Launching the jeep instead of just the boat had been someone else's responsibility, and to my knowledge, I had not caused any damage to boat or equipment. I had recommended at the start to look into insurance for the project, and had tried to reduce rental costs when I found that the measured mile on Maui on multiple tests showed the car to indicate 10% high. Furthermore, I had been doing almost all of the driving of the boat and various cars.
After Doak left, I had it out with Ralph, who then brought up that Ted did not want me around the boys to 'affect the atmosphere'. He also had some budget problems and crawled back to allowing me a maximum of $ 1,000 exclusive of diving. I mentioned that
I had come to Hawaii since I had finished all I could do at SIO and had his promise of help; that I would do the project at my own expense and responsibility if UH wanted to pull out, but that I hoped this would not be necessary and that I would compromise and cooperate as much as possible.
So that was the end of my first week of ups and downs in Hawaii or in Herb's vernacular: "bald himmelhoch jauchzend bald zum Tode betrubt". As to lavaflows, the radio and newspaper commented on the fact that Kilauea has been active for the last 20 years...
