October 7, 2000
The Well
5:30am
Camp 1
Gadafawa

Greg needs the pick axe to trench through
the hard sandstone at the titanosaur site

It is the morning of October 7. The day is breaking pink and blue over the team, most of whom are still bundled in their sleeping bags on their cots. These are our last days at Camp 1.

We are down to the last of our water and our plaster. Everyone (again) is awaiting the arrival of the big truck to bring our necessary supplies - not only water and plaster, but also diesel for the vehicles.

When the team gets together over a meal what we mostly talk about is plaster and water. The conversations are pretty similar and turn on two key questions: How much do we have? How much are we using?

Wells - like this one - are centers for nomadic activity.

We have consumed plaster at an impressive rate - we have used more than 40 of our 75 100-pound bags. Restocking our supply will be a challenge: Niger's plaster is usually weak and hard to come by. We may have to find a way to have some shipped in from a nearby country; perhaps Burkina Faso or possibly Mali.

We calculate that we are using about 160 liters of water a day, but the water balloon is being depleted much more quickly. Either the water balloons don't hold the amounts we think they do, or our calculations are off.

When we returned to Camp 1 after our week-long break, we began visiting a nearby well to supplement our water supply. (Click Here to Learn About the Well)

 We are conserving Agadez water for drinking and cooking and using the well water for plastering and washing. Personal washing is back down to a minimum - no showers until the big truck arrives.

Bido has gone into town to bring water back ahead of the big truck should the big truck be delayed for any reason.

EXPEDITION LOGISTICS

Rudd and Chris work loose the ropes used to flip the
heaviest jacket at the Suchomimus site.

Expeditions in harsh environments are as much about logistics and planning as they are about determination and research. Our ability conduct four camps this season will depend not only on the team's hard work, but good decisions about

- when to move (how much time will we need, how much area do we need to cover? How long will it take to get there? How much set up and take down time do we need at either end of the work?);

- what to move (what do we need to do the work? How much food and water? Which tools and equipment and how much? If we run into a vehicle problem or a medical problem, will we have what we need?) and 

- how to move (do we bring all four of our vehicles so that each carries less weight, or do we take fewer vehicles, use less fuel, but load them heavier? How much space do we need for people - our team plus our five guards - and equipment? Do we hire a truck to carry water out for us, or can our own vehicles handle the weight? Once we're through with the work will our vehicles be able to carry everything, including heavy plaster jackets, back to Agadez or do we need to make other arrangements?)

Throw into the logistical mix the following variables:

• Desert driving
• One working phone line in Agadez
• No email
• Vehicle problems
• Water, food and plaster consumption

Breakfast meetings are key times for thinking through many of these facets. And even after the best of plans are laid, there is usually still a problem.

Paul: What's the plan this morning with the pelvic jacket?

Hans: We have to undercut a lot more

Paul: If you undercut it enough, you'll be able to slide it. Probably that will be better than flipping it.

Hans: That's what we were thinking.

Jack:  Two people have survived the l'eau d'chameau - I'm the second person.

Paul: Who's the first?

Jack: You are!

Jack's comment about "l'eau d'chameau" (camel water) is a reference to water from the well, which, even after filtering and purifying with Micropur tablets, retains a faint flavor of camel. Paul and Jack volunteered to drink some last night to test the effects.

As the breakfast meeting progresses, Mike is walking around with the video camera at breakfast, doing spot interviews, news style.

"What do people miss most?" Mike asks.

"Girlfriend." "Girlfriend."  "Food." "Going out to eat." "Good coffee." "Reading the sports page." "Running water."

Paul: Speaking of water, Jack, how much do we have in camp?

Jack:   85 or 90 liters of drinking water, but we expect to have a water truck  - it's less than one day's worth. Whether or not Bido comes ahead of the truck, we should probably go to the well today.

Paul has taken out the xeroxed topographic map, now covered with literally hundreds of red numbers and lines marking our field sites. He focuses on the northern portion of the map, the area still blank on the map.

Paul: "It's going to be critical that we place the water pretty far up north - just south of this site here.

Several of the northern localities described by our predecessors, French paleontologists Phillippe Taquet and Albert Lapperent, mention a "puis" ("well" in French).

Everyone is wondering what the north holds. Will the beds be a continuation of what we've been working in Camp 1? Or will the fossils peter out? The beds are the same age - 110 million years old - but no one has done a thorough survey. The French reported finding fossils - including two dinosaurs and a small crocodile, but neither worked with a team capable of doing a general survey of the area.

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