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3/23*/2001 - Mir Chaser -    Nadi to Suva by bus. I woke up 6:00am,  had our early breakfast  at 6:30. It was an exciting day.  We boarded our tour bus, by then  press/media groups had their shoulder-TV  cameras were busy  filming their country guess- of- honor - the Russian cosmonaut.  On the way we had a great view of the coastal shores - turquoise blue shallow coral atolls, villages with neatly lined sugar-canes.  On some part of the ocean facing shoreline we had seen damages done to the dwellings and uprooted trees - may be from recent tidal waves or tropical storms.  We ran into heavy downpour - the typical  tropical rainstorm.  The traffic came to an halt temporary due to a  Fijian  Christian funeral procession - men in tie and black suit and Fijian 'dress' - the sulu. The bus climbed some peak, my altitude-indicating watch told me around 80 meters high we crossed over to the central part of the island.  Some tree-ferns were seen in the higher altitude. 
   At  Suva domestic airport - the press must have know our schedule and we were greeted by the same TV crews team two hours  earlier in Nadi.  Suva air port is pretty small  Our forty plus strong  jammed packed the place. As I lined-up for immigration, Asahi news-team interviewed me - all I could say was how exciting I was. We scrambled onboard the two awaiting turbo-prop aircrafts. Our  spirits were high.  Faith rejoined team - Faith and Don are the most loving couple I have seen.
  At Tonga - After hour or half fly time our -Brasilia seated 23 touched down in our refueling station - Tonga.  I was greeted by slight drizzle as I walked towards the tiny air port. Tonga's  flag reminded me of Swiss's flag - but then it was a white-cross on a red background.  The red signify the bloodshed!  To save jet fuel we were told to  leave behind our bags.  I  choose one monopod, two video cameras, my Cp950 and one Neptune-100N with 75mm video lens and the 2AH acid gel battery.  We flew off once again after  20 minutes , this time every one was  reseated according to plan.  Our air hostess is a Fijian girl graduated from political science.  Snacks were served but I lost my appetite to eat - too much adrenalin in my system. We were `headed down SE - last minute seats-changed so that press people can have their gear out on a better window. 
   The two hours flight to 'visual intercept' point  I was seated with  xxx the first row on the right side of the plane.  The window is far from perfect - it was forward and at least it was clean.  I was testing my video gear and found an annoying flickering in the recording camcorder.  Checking the other camcorder revealed the same phenomena.  The conclusion was not the gel battery running out. I checked with my Nikon Coolpix 950, the flickering even affected this digital camera. As I was playing with shutter speed, the flickering changes frequency - well it was not from within the camera(s) - it took me a while to figure out the real culprit was the turbo-prop propellers outside. The setting sun-rays were interrupted by the rotating propellers causing a strobe-effect on ALL the ccds. I shared this findings with my bemused neighbor.  To even check out whether both of us will still be able to record out of the same window with our handy cams - I asked him to pretend shooting. Well we both can record from where we seats. He even assured me I can do whatever I wanted to.  How very kind of him. But this did not last very long.  I was soon approached by Bob. He was asking me whether it was possible to swap seat with a guy. His window was fogged out.  I obliged and soon saw myself the 90% fogged window, the only 10% were along the top portions of the window. However I still can access the front window - blocked partially by the non-reclining seat in front. At least my hand-held ccd can reach I thought.  Don was sitting in front of me - was the only person doing some scientific work with the debris videos. He had a bracket holding up two miniDV  camcorder each with a spectrometer filters. The whole contraptions seated on a tripod with black clothes covering it. His loving wife Faith callout the GMS readings. I was ready with my low lux Neptune 100N.   I scanned the horizon - using clouds for focusing. The low contrast of the twilight horizon was difficult to focus on. The FOV was 7 degree but knowing the IR sensitivity of the CCD I should detect something earlier than others and.. yet I my LCD screen reveal nothing. I expect a cry from earlier spotters somewhere any minutes, any seconds..
The final moment came, looking out at the window - sunset - low clouds were gathering in less than 10 degrees. We were told to look at SE horizon 10-20 degrees. It seemed to be a long wait - nothing - wait and nothing.  Faith was saying she saw a 'star' . As time ticked by, I remembered Ron asked for a time check and  I heard  " .... 05:55. "  My heart sank  - I knew by then  the Mir should have hit Pacific ocean hopefully missing the squids fisherman somewhere in the more southerly latitudes. ( I had downloaded Bob Christy's Mir splashed down trajectories days earlier and know the timing).  Then I heard Ron said tried the other side of the plane.  The plane made a U-turn and some one on the 'wrong' ( now the right side ) side of the plane said they spotted something. Immediately there were a scramble to wrong side of the window at the back end of the plane, to view this 'star' thing. We had people lying flat on the corridor just to make room for others to climbed to the other window.  I didn't - I knew we had BLEW the chance. Mir was gone - zipping past us without showing her presence.  I saw  Ron took down the black cloths covering the spectroscopic video set-up.  Bob go around checking who had seen what.  Some one disputed this findings since at the cockpit nothing was seen.  Theories were  made and disprove - Mir? ISS? Venus? Bob confidently mentioned there were no Venus at that time.  After some time Bob finally conceded it was a NO-SHOW.  Nonetheless he said it was still considered a success expedition - we applauded.  Champagne was popped and we sipped in silence.  There were frantic activities in the back of the plane where I was  seated.  Frantic calls were made using onboard iridium phones to announce our no-show, video receptions were cancelled. And it was then we knew others had enjoyed a once-in-a-life-time firework display of Mir solar panels disintegrating over Fiji sky.  Worse still, from the very same hotel we left earlier in the day.  I could felt the frustration  and dismayed in the calls - the lost business opportunity to rivals -  I knew, I was seated in front of them  and was helping to place the button-like antennae against the fogged window.  During the flights the Russians had placed several direct calls to the mission control. We knew of the first , 2nd and even third burn were on time and on scheduled.  What we didn't know is the continued 3rd burning and there were no inter-craft communications!
   A quiet touch down in Tonga - dazed and slight drizzle hit my face as I walked light-headed towards the sheltering area.  We found, much to our surprise the other craft had videos of 'Mir'.   I  swung my digicam around and wanted to capture this terrific moments. I could felt the 180-degree change of mood.  From abyss despair to great joy. You can catch the  jubilant  shouts.  XX light up a cigarette - the burning tip glow bright in the night vision shot.   Rick called wife and said the kids saved the day. I saw a Nimrod parked on the other end of the tarmac. Through  night-vision mode I could discern activities around her.  There were excitement as others gathered around to view the boy's videos. What I glimpsed was a bright object entering clouds.  I picked up my gears left earlier.   We left for Nadi on the smaller Banderiante seated-14  together with the Russians.  It was a noisy plane but the window was higher and much cleaner.  The others were headed for Suva for a important video assignment before flying back to Nadi some eighty kilometers away.   I was tired and just wanted to be back.  In Nadi  we were greeted by xxx on tarmac.  The same press people were there again.  The  Singapore Ashahi TV reporter  asked me - " Are you disappointed?"  The whole air port was closed by then - it was slightly before mid-night.  Some how we were lead to an  air bridge so that we can access the building for immigration clearance.  I hopped onto a taxi with another participant - he missed his international connecting flight by mere five minutes despite earlier call to allow another 15 minutes wait.  He was going to miss a wedding dinner.   I reached Hotel slightly after mid-night.  ( not knowing I had lost my digital camera then).  I watched CNNs and viewed the re-play of the daylight  Mir event happened just within minutes walk from my hotel room!  Later I called my wife and told her first-hand what happened here.