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The Search For Natalee Holloway: A Producer's Diary - Day 2
10/26/2005

Tim Miller talks with the group about the search.This is the second in a series of journal entries AMW correspondent Rick Segall wrote as he searched in Aruba with Dave Holloway, Natalee Holloway's father, and the EquuSearch team.

I've never liked boats on the ocean, ever since I got sick on a deep-sea fishing charter as a kid. But after meeting Dave Holloway, there is nothing that can keep me from getting on the search boat today to search for Natalee Holloway. For me, it's not just about a young woman who keeps popping up in the headlines. It's about a father facing the reality that his little girl may be somewhere out in these impossibly blue waters. The more Dave talks about it, the more he forces me to contemplate having my own sweet daughter lost in the sea. I get teary-eyed every time I let myself go down that path.

Snip...Out On The Water
Back and forth. Back and forth. That's what the boat does all day. Further and further from shore. The EquuSearch experts keep an eye out for anything irregular. Nothing. Then a find late in the afternoon. The FISH picks up a large rectangular object about 40 feet down on the ocean floor. The discovery is both exciting and horrifying.

Everyone on the boat knows what we're looking for. The Deputy Chief of Police told Dave Holloway and the EquuSearch team to look out for a large steel fishing cage that was stolen from the same spot where Natalee Holloway was last seen. The theory is that Natalee may have been put in a fishing cage and dumped into the sea the night after she disappeared. Is this object on the ocean floor that fishing cage?

Snip...A Mysterious Find At The Bottom Of The Sea

I wish I were a certified diver. But without those skills, I have to stay on the boat while the pros slip on their scuba gear. Two divers head to the ocean floor to investigate the suspicious object. As hard as I try, I can't see anything 40 feet down, so I just follow their air bubbles as they break on the surface. They are gone for about 10 minutes. Finally, back to the surface. It is NOT a fishing cage. It is a large cement block. But the divers say it is suspiciously out of place.

The cement block could be a boat mooring. That sounds like a logical explanation to me, since lots of boats are sporadically moored in this area of the harbor. But the divers say the cement block has nearly no marine growth, indicating that it is brand new. And it has no hooks to moor a boat. I think maybe it just flipped over when it was dropped into the sea and the hooks are on the underside. But the EquuSearch team wants to determine if they need to bring this block to the surface for further investigation.

Now we're on a fact finding mission. The divers check out the moorings of several nearby boats to see if they all look the same. They find one that's similar, but nothing that's identical to the block we just found. So the EquuSearch volunteers mark the spot for further investigation. Then it's back to shore.

Snip...
Dave meets us on shore with his usual optimistic smile. I don't know how he does it. I know it helps to be with Tim Miller. Tim reminds us all that it was another successful day, pointing out that we cleared several more square miles on the map. Tim says "We have a better idea of where we won't find Natalee. Tomorrow is another day."

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The cement block could be a boat mooring. That sounds like a logical explanation to me, since lots of boats are sporadically moored in this area of the harbor. But the divers say the cement block has nearly no marine growth, indicating that it is brand new. And it has no hooks to moor a boat. I think maybe it just flipped over when it was dropped into the sea and the hooks are on the underside.

I don't think this is a boat mooring with the hooks on the underside. No no no, that's not now it is done.

This is why. My husband, son and I made our own 800 lb cement mooring and placed it in Tomales Bay, CA for our sailboat. Before we hauled it over there to drop in the water, we imbeded into the wet cement a part of a big old bridge turnbuckle for the eye, then hooked the swivel shackle to the eye, then hooked on 75 feet of heavy chain, then another swivel shackle and then attached the mooring rope, with float attached to that.

You do not drop a concrete mooring block in deep water with no tackle attached to it, and then start worrying about how you are going to attach all the necessary tackle. You never want to let go of the bitter end of a mooring rope or chain. It's called the bitter end for a reason.

If a mooring block lands upside down, you just wench up on the mooring chain until it turns upright.

This cement block is not a upside down mooring block.

Didn't someone post that PVDS poured cement in his backyard after Natalee disappeared? Is this the Aruban version of the "cement overshoes of the mafia"? Is this the explanation of PVDS's comment, "No body - no case".