[meteorite-list] Church Organist Required for Jungle Meteorite Hunt

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:01:01 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200703121601.l2CG11n17202_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1499849.ece

Church organist required for jungle meteorite hunt
Jack Malvern
The Times (United Kingdom)
March 12, 2007

Wanted: one organist for concert in remote Bolivian jungle accessible
only by raft. Must be prepared to face rapids, alligators and 30C (86F)
temperatures. Ability to swim a bonus.

Church organists are rarely an essential part of expeditions into the
Amazonian rainforest, but a team of scientists about to embark on a
journey to a far-flung meteorite impact site in Bolivia believe that one
will be key to achieving their mission.

Colonel John Blashford-Snell, a professional adventurer who made
headlines in 2000 when he took a grand piano 350 miles (560km) along the
Amazon River as a present for the Wai Wai tribe in Guyana, intends to
deliver a pedal organ to the isolated Ojaki community as a way of
persuading its people to help his expedition.

The colonel's team, which will also help to install a clean water supply
and perform medical duties for the Ojaki people, are reliant on local
expertise to build bridges to the impact site, which is five miles wide.
The locals are religious and have asked the visitors to install an organ
in their newly built church.

The organ - a pedal-powered Harmonium donated by St James's church in
Milton Abbas, Dorset - will be flown to La Paz and then transported by
lorry 120 miles over the Andes to the Beni river. It will then be loaded
on to a 59ft (18m) boat for a 430-mile journey over rapids and more
dangerous, man-made hazards.

Colonel Blashford-Snell, 70, told The Times that the main obstacle would
be logs floated down the river by timber companies. "You get around
those by gunning the engine before pulling the prop out of the water,"
he said. "God willing, your bow comes out of the water and you shoot
over the log and land on the other side."

Natural hazards include alligators, although these are not a problem
"unless you step on them", he said.

The explorer made a reconnaissance expedition two years ago but had to
stop within seven miles of the crater when his party got down to their
last bottle of water. He suggests that any organist willing to join
should be prepared to face discomforts such as swarms of bees and 30C
temperratures. "The organist should be fit enough to catch a bus and it
would be very nice if he or she could swim," he said. The successful
applicant will also be expected to pay a share of the costs of about
?2,000.

The team hopes to be the first to bring back traces of the meteorite,
which is estimated to have landed between 5,000 and 30,000 years ago. It
will also try formally to identify the Andean double-nosed tiger hound,
a dog first observed in Bolivia in 1913 by Percy Fawcett, a British
adventurer.

Derring-do

o Colonel John Blashford-Snell is a former officer in the Royal Engineers
who helped to found Operation Raleigh. He will lead the 20-person team
on the two-month trip on June 21

o He has twice been shot at by Ethiopian bandits, bitten by a vampire bat
and ate a Panamanian spider monkey

o Blashford-Snell is the founder of the Scientific Exploration Society

o He led the first descent of the Ethiopian Blue Nile in 1968 and the
first vehicle crossing of the Darien Gap in Panama in 1972

o He invented a jungle hat that is mosquito-repellent, Teflon-coated and
has a refrigerated headband

o He said recently: "I often say at 6am as I climb out of a soaking wet
hammock, 'God, I must be mad. Why am I doing this?'"
Received on Mon 12 Mar 2007 12:01:01 PM PDT