DXpedition to Long Island - NA-001 - May 1 until May 15, 2005

  It is April 30, 2005.
Our plane leaves Berlin at 07:30, heading Paris. After two hours we check in for our

With our friend Carolyn

Air France flight to Miami where we arrive at 15:00. We stay there for one night and change to Bahamas Air the next morning. We arrive in Nassau at 08:40. Our next flight to Long Island starts at 12:30. We have plenty of time. Our friend Carolyn, C6AGG, picks us up for a visit in her house. Then she shows us the environment of our first stay in the Bahamas. We hardly recognize the scenery around “Orange Hill Beach Inn”, where we stayed 12 years ago. We hardly can tell, that it looks nicer now. Big concrete tourist “fortresses”, Condominiums and Supermarkets all around, building plots wherever we look, no more shade spending trees at the beach ...

Bahamas Airview

  Our “Aah”s and “Ooh”s during the flight from Nassau to Long Island make the other passengers of our small propeller plane grin, but we enjoy the beautiful look at the many islands in the turquoise sea beneath like little children. They probably don’t understand why those ugly Europeans make such a noise for nothing.

  Georg, C6AIC, a retired German and his XYL who live on Long Island since years and Alfred, our host, are waiting for us at Stella Maris Airport.

 
   After a short ride we occupy our QTH ”Coral Gardens Apt’s”, just a mile away from the airport.

Coral Gardens Apartments

  We booked our apartment in the Internet and realize now that we have rented a well equipped two bedroom apartment with kitchen for a reasonable price.
  Okay, the Bahamas don’t really belong to the low prize countries on our globe, but 56 $ per night for two persons doesn’t seem to be too expensive!
Our first buy was a little different: 3,65 $ for a toast bread, 6,80 $ for 125 grams of instant coffee and 3,- $ for a small bottle of beer is another thing, but all the goods have to be brought by ship or plane to Long Island.
10 $ for an hour in the Internet is not cheap too. The owner of the Internet access point told me, that he had to pay 35.000 $ for the line.

  Our QTH Coral Gardens Apt’s is located in the northern part of the island, between Stella Maris and Burnt Ground, just a “stone throw” from the Coral Garden Reef at the Atlantic coast. The next beach near Stella Maris is almost a mile away.

  Long Island is about 80 miles long and 2-4 miles wide. 2400 people live here. We rent a car to explore the island. Long Island has beautiful deserted beaches (at the Atlantic coast mostly littered with plastic tanks, containers, bottles and other things of our so called “civilization”). We usually were the only people at the beaches.

Dean’s Blue Hole

  The most spectacular experience we had was snorkeling in Dean’s Blue Hole. It is hard to describe the feeling snorkeling in shallow water, less than two feet deep and then float over the edge of the 660 feet deep Blue Hole. I once saw a 3-D-film of a low-altitiude flight over the edge of the Grand Canyon.
I would compare it with that feeling, when the sudden depth makes you hold your breath. The Blue Hole has a diameter of approximately 90 feet. We were told, that Jacques Cousteau made a film of this Blue Hole. If anybody has any info on that film, please let me know, where I could find any copy in the Internet or any shop ...
The Blue Hole was the only place in Long Island, where we never were alone. It seems to be a famous “pilgrims” place.

  Because of the worst condx I ever had on any DXpedition I made only 3058 QSOs.
The first weekend I took part in the ARI International DX Contest (368 QSOs) and the second weekend in the Alessandro Volta RTTY DX Contest (308 QSOs within 24 hours).
  The Volta Contest shows, how bad condx were: first hour - 23 QSOs, the first 100 QSOs after 9:10 hours, last QSO 11:39z followed by 21 minutes CQ without response. You may understand, that it didn’t even bring tears of joy into my eyes ...

  Due to the “lousy” condx during daytime my XYL Erika

My XYL Erika in her element

and I had plenty of time for common activities like sightseeing and snorkeling. Most beaches on the Atlantic side of the island have beautiful reefs but we seldom had calm seas like on the Caribbean side so it seemed to be too dangerous to us to snorkel to the more extended reefs a little farther off the shore.
  We found the best nearby reef  right beyond the Columbus Monument at the north tip of the island. We saw lots of fish, a turtle and a big variety of corals. 

  During the second weekend the 35. Annual Long Island Regata takes place in

35th Long Island Regata

Salt Pond. It is the biggest event on the island. Allowed are only self made Bahamian boats in different classes. We have a lot of fun to watch the maneuvres of the big boats. It is a rather artistic performance how the guys change directions. Several crew members are sitting on planks on the Luv side of the boat and built up a counterweight to the slope of the boat. When the Skipper turns the boat at the buoy, they have to slide back into the boat quickly, get the planks in, have to push them out on the other side and slide onto the planks and build up the counterweight again.
Most islanders meet in Salt Pond and enjoy the spectacle.

  After eventful two weeks vacations we leave Long Island May 16 and visit our friends Kay and Chet (AB4XK) in Eagle Lake, Florida, where we stay for 4 days.
We visit “Sponge City” Tarpon Springs, Tampa and some other places before we leave them heading Dayton for the HamVention.
  We have a lot of fun meeting old and new friends, wellknown DXers and contesters. Big “Hello’s”, when we recognize each others by our call signs and make our first eyeball QSOs or meet again after years.
We meet George, K5KG/J75KG, five years after our first meeting in Dominica, Jim, WI9WI, eight years after visiting us in Berlin, Mike, K4GMH, after countless contest QSOs, Ron, K5DJ, 5 years after our first eyeball QSO in Dayton in 2000.
And we enjoy our coincidental encounters with Bharati/VU4RBI, Larry/VQ9LA, Manfred/HZ1IK, Alan/7Q7PA Tadao/JA1WPX, Yuki/JH1NBN, Ritsu Seo/JR3RVO, Ben/ZA1K, Kari/OH2BP, Les/WF5E and many many others.

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