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were, after all, expecting to find plane wreckage or, at worst, bodies from an airliner crash, drifting with the tide. Lawrence's brother Wilfred had already switched on a powerful "seal beam" light and was shining it ahead of the Rhonda D on the smooth surface of the waters. On the Joan Priscilla Norm Smith remembers the crew speaking in hushed tones, so as to maximize their chances of hearing cries for help from any survivors that might be out there. Constable O'Brien recalls looking to the stern of the boat and seeing a subdued young fisherman sitting on the transom, his arms folded, scanning first the port side, then to starboard. Norm Smith was disturbed by the thought of what he might find over toward the island. He was not only concerned about the possibility of seeing human body parts floating in the water. There was something else bothering him too. He had been one of the witnesses who saw the plane descending toward the harbor, and he was not thoroughly convinced in his own mind that what he had seen was an 1 oon airplane at all. Meanwhile, Corporal Werbicki was braced against the wheelhouse, holding on to some rigging, scanning the waters ahead for any sign of survivors. They were making about ten knots. The diesel muttered below deck, its muffler growling from above the deckhouse. The bow waves rolled back along the Joan Priscilla's rounded hull, curling into little crests, hissing when they collapsed back onto the surface of the water. O'Brien watched the Rhonda D's light play across the water only one hundred feet north of them. Both vessels were nearly abreast when they encountered thick yellow foam near the impact site. Lawrence Smith pulled the throttle back and slowed the Rhonda D to a crawl. What the hell is this? he wondered. Off to his left, Brad Shand had done likewise, his boat coasting into the foam. Lawrence called across the space between the two boats. "What do you make of this, Brad?" In the cool, still night air, his voice carried easily, even over the noise of the boat engines. Shand surveyed the waters around him. They were in a long, wide patch of glittering yellow foam, about three inches thick, that floated like shaving cream on the sound. The stuff was roiled by bubbles a c Me neither, Lawrence thought. They were used to sea foam, which would have been nothing new, but none of the fishermen equated this stuff with sea foam. In an interview nearly thirty years later Ron O'Brien, who was retired by that time, remembered the reluctance of the fishermen to sail through the foam. Aboard Brad Shand's boat Constable O'Brien watched one of the younger men reach over the back of the boat and dip his hands into the foam. When he pulled them back in, his arms were covered by some type of oily substance. It didn't cause him any pain when he touched it. Everyone smelled it and felt its rising to the surface. "Never seen anything like this before," he hollered back. "Can't say as I care for it."