Great Recap John, thanks.
Bill - KJ4EX
On Sunday, February 9, 2014 11:00 AM, John Getz <johngetz24 at gmail.com> wrote:
Blowing time in the San Juan airport so decided to write a
report on my dive/radio trip to Dominica as J79JG.
?
This was an 11 day trip with one night spent overnight in
San Juan, 7 nights at the Castle Cove Dive Resort on the southwest shore of
Dominica and 3 nights at Sunset Bay Resort on the northwest shore.? I was
traveling with eight other diver
friends.
?
At the first resort, I had arranged an ocean front room
about 30 feet from the water.? My
operating position was right by a window where I could watch the sailboats and
cruise ships.? I was able to put up wire
antennas on the roof of the two story building.? The longest antenna that I had
room for was a 30 meter dipole.? My problem was that I was unable to get the
antennas more than 3' above the roof.
?
During the day I had trouble making contacts but late
afternoon and evening, I got out pretty well.? My favorite time/band was 17
meters, before and after sunset, when I
could work JA.? I know my signal was weak
over there so I made it a point to send their calls at least twice.? 30 meters
was pretty good into Europe.
?
Our plan was to change resorts after a week so we could dive
sites to the north.? In the process of
taking down my antennas, I managed to scrape against a piece of vertical rebar
and made a pretty good gash in my leg.? It was probably bad enough to require
stitches but I taped it up and let
the salt water do its work on it.? It's
now been four days and it's looking pretty good.? On one of the dives, I was
hanging on the
anchor line doing the required 3 minute safety stop at 15? and got into some
stinging growth.? The itching stopped
after about 24 hours but the rash will probably take about a week to go away.
?
The manta of this group was:? As long as you don?t require stitches or a trip
to an emergency room,
you are having? ?fun?.? The more damage, the more ?fun? you are
having.? Another diver slipped and fell
into the dive boat.? He was hurting for
both dives that day and skipped the next two.? One day we did a hike and swam
up a freshwater stream that feeds the
local power turbines.? The water was
rushing pretty hard and we all had some bruises.? That day was lots of ?fun?.
?I might add that all of us are over 60.
?
After a week, we moved to the second resort.? I hadn't asked permission to put
up an
antenna but my room was located where I could put up an almost unseen 40 meter
inverted vee. The resort owner was a real bitch so she probably would not have
approved.? Her staff all called her
"The Madam".? With that
antenna, I was able to work 40 and 15 meters.? It was nice to be fresh meat on
40 for the last three days.
?
I ended up making 1,736 Q's, including 32 dupes, with all but
two on CW.? I spent 32 hours in the
chair.? About 150 JA?s got into the
log.? I worked some of the same JA
stations on both 15 and 17 meters.? There
were a few ZL?s and VK?s.? I worked lots
of Europe.? Some had real strong signals
and some were way down in the mud.? There
were probably equal numbers of EU?s and US stations worked.
?
The diving was excellent.? Our group did 20 dives and saw a lot of real
interesting stuff.? There were no sharks but we saw rays, turtles
and tons of fish.? We did two night dives.
We saw lots of? moray eels.? The reefs had a lot of lion fish that need to
be eradicated.? Another diver, myself and
the local Divemasters took out about 100 fish.? One night we had the resort
cook some up for us as they are very good
eating.? Lion fish have very venomous
spines.? The other hunter/diver had a
minor sting that went away in a few hours.? The Divemaster had a much deeper
stick and was in more pain.? However since it was his 21st lion fish
stick, he knew what to expect and was able to continue with the dive.? He
actually earns part of his living by
spearing and selling lion fish.? He likes
to hunt in 120? to 160? feet of water as that depth isn?t covered by normal
recreational divers.? Our group never
went below 100? and normally stayed above 70?. He estimates he has killed about
8,000.? Lion fish are not native and are
killing off the local fish population.? I'm told that a female lion fish can
produce up to 30,000 eggs every few days.? Because of this, it?s impossible to
get rid
of them.
?
We had rain showers almost every day and night.? They were usually quick and
didn't cause much
of a problem.? One night we had a heavy
rain and the silt from the rivers flowed into the sea.? The cold muddy water
was on the top so we
were able to descend below it and be pretty much in the clear.?
?
The island of Dominica is very mountainous.? The drive between the airport and
both
resorts was about 90 minutes.? It's not
all that far but the winding roads and rough spots make it a long trip.? They
are in the process of replacing many of
the bridges.? However they haven?t
repaired the damage to the road caused by the bridge construction.
?
I'm not sure when or where my next trip will be.? If there are any other
experienced scuba divers
in the group, please keep me in mind if you ever want to join forces on a
trip.? It's great fun diving, playing
radio and having ?fun? beating your body up!
?
John, AD8J, J79JG
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