Overnight on Sunday 7th May the prefabricated modular Cable Landing Station (CLS) arrived at Koror Port. We were unable to move it from the dock for a few days due to activity at the port, and so Flexenclosure’s Tomas Martinsson and PMU’s Mike Gilbert and Richard Misech used the delay to good effect, reviewing the civil works at the landing site, arranging power connections and ensuring that the CLS foundation was prepared for the installation of the module.

On Thursday, 11th May, the CLS was loaded onto a barge for transport to the site. The module weighs over twelve tonnes, so it was a tricky operation, requiring all the impressive surgical skills of the crane and front-end loader operators.

Here, Mason Whipps nudges the module closer to the edge of the dock with a large front end loader, to enable it to be lifted by the crane, which is already on the barge.

We were all relieved to see the CLS safely on the barge and on its way to Ngaremlengui.

Flexenclosure Marketing Manager, Nick Arvanitis, recorded the departure for posterity.

Unloading at Ngaremlengui the next morning was another tricky operation.

Finally the CLS was lowered precisely into position on pre-levelled flanges bolted to the concrete foundation.

Meanwhile a big milestone for Palau was achieved on the main trunk cable lay this week, with completion of the segment that includes our branching unit. The cable ship Bold Maverick has laid the BU 200kms west of Palau with a stub cable which will be used to establish the spur to Palau. The stub cable will be connected to a buoy until another cable ship arrives in August/September to extend it to Palau and make the connection into the cable station in Ngeremlengui.

Starting this week, PMU and Flexenclosure engineers will be readying power and communications connections, sea, ground and station earths and conduits to ensure we are prepared for the NEC submarine fibre network terminal, protection and power feed equipment that will be arriving in about a month.