EJ:

  After a long night sleep I re-read the notes from FUV yesterday ..

The Philippines made no claim on it until 1997, when the third DXpedition went out there in a Chinese survey ship.

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That statement by FUV seems to indicate a change in DU’s prior denial of the reefs being in their territory years before 1997. That clearly indicated that DU was switching its idea about the reefs being at least partially theirs.

But, being on the prefix list as BS7, indicates China has more of a control of going to S Reef, and I suspect ANY operation from BS7 would require ‘approval’ of BOTH DU and BY, as was done by our trip, a COMBINED effort. The BY ops on our trip were jailed/held for a couple of days in DU when our boat went to DU from S Reef and not back to BY. There was an urgent illness of one of the American operators, and DU was so much closer than HK. Then the Hong Kong boat finally took the BY operators straight back to China from DU and went right by BS7 on the way back.

What a strange situation! In fact, the trip TO BS7 almost was cancelled in Hong Kong until the last few hours, and the boat owner/captain finally took off. Some operator diversity for sure during the trip, eating separately etc. So it appears any trip to BS7 would be under approval of China mainly, and that could be another P5 situation. Would BY go without approval of DU?

So, likely things will stay the same and hopefully a trip will happen in a few years. Hate that for those who need ONLY BS7 for having all 340 current countries and on Top of Honor Roll.

   Good day all and 73,

   San K5YY

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