Some Days, the Ocean Says No
Today, it seemed that everything was against us.
Both Krzysztof Sobkowiak and I were under the weather and simply not up to joining the dive. That meant the team was short the underwater drone and one experienced diver. It wasn’t easy staying back—we both felt like we were abandoning ship—but we urged the rest of the team to press on without us.
First up: a return to the site where we’d had promising sonar hits yesterday—what we hoped might be the final resting place of PT-31. The area looked solid on the scan, and I’ll admit, I let myself imagine spotting one of her torpedo tubes, or perhaps a glint of the Packard engines that powered those swift little boats through combat.
But the ocean had other plans.
There was nothing of consequence at the site. Not today. Disappointing, yes—but not unexpected. One hard lesson I’ve learned over the past year of searching is this: temper every surge of hope with a healthy respect for the sea’s ability to guard her secrets.
Sometimes, the best way to capture the spirit of a day out here is to let the story come straight from the person who lived it. So I’ll let Tim Beckensall’s words speak for themselves. They say it best.:
"A bump dive on what was thought to be the site of the PT31 found nothing but sand. A hunch and a local fisherman's bangka boat in the distance sent us west. We found the fisherman was sitting atop a large target, which was surrounded by fish. We scanned it on 6 directions and found the target most likely an uncharted reef."
From there, Robbie and Tim headed to another sonar contact, this one with the tantalizing shape of aircraft wings. Could this be the Japanese Zero we’ve speculated about?
For a few moments, spirits lifted. The image on sonar was unmistakably wing-shaped. But once again—not what we thought. What lay on the bottom was an old industrial crane, long forgotten, its boom mimicking the span of a wing. Just another derelict hulk, discarded when its usefulness ended.
But here’s the thing—we don’t see days like this as failures. Every dive, every sweep, clears a bit more of the mystery. Somewhere in the waters at the mouth of Subic Bay, Lt. Thompson’s Hellcat rests waiting for us to find it. Today brought us one step closer by ruling out more of the unknown.
We’ll be back in the water soon. Stronger. Wiser. Still searching.
