Field notes ·
Rabaul: our first field deployment is complete
Nineteen days in Simpson Harbour with drone, sonar, divers and ROV. What we set out to do, and what happens to the material now.
On 22 October 2026 the team left Rabaul after nineteen days on and under Simpson Harbour. It was Project Guardian's first field deployment: the first time the platform's desk assessments were tested against what is on the seabed.
What we set out to do
Simpson Harbour holds more than 50 wartime wrecks inside an active caldera, in a port that is in daily use. The aim was simple to state: locate the highest-priority targets, measure them, look at their condition, and bring back evidence that could replace inference in the platform.
How the days went
We worked from a small boat with Salt PNG, the dive operator in Rabaul, moving from drone passes over the harbour to sonar transects, then to dives on the shallower wrecks and ROV runs on the deeper ones. Each measured target now carries a survey-derived position and dimensions in the inventory.
What happens next
The survey report is in preparation. When it is complete, the findings update each surveyed wreck's assessment, component by component, with the survey recorded as the source. The full account is on the Rabaul field report page.