[VHFcontesting] News from Team K5N

[Marshall Williams]

Hello to everyone....Danny-N5OMG lives in New Orleans very close to 
EL58.  Recently, he enlisted the aid of a boat captain that has over 50 
years experience in those waters.  Danny asked the captain to go down to 
Burwood Island in EL58 and check it out for us.  Danny wanted an "eyes 
on" report so that we can decide what to do.  The captain came back and 
gave us the following information:
1)Most of the island where you need to be is under water,
2)The rest of the island is covered with mud(deposited by the flooding 
river), and
3)The safe anchor area that we had for the boats has been washed away.

The captain estimated that it would be at least 4 weeks until the flood 
has gone down enough to reveal our operating spot and that even if the 
operating spot was out of the water, it will still be covered in mud.  
It is going to take a year or more of rains to wash the mud off the 
island and reveal our operating area as a sandy beach.

These facts are not very nice.  The team had a conference call and we 
"cussed and discussed" the situation.  Most reluctantly, we all agreed 
that we will have to cancel EL58 for 2011.  All of us wanted to go to 
EL58-none of use wanted to cancel.  However, we just cannot cope with 
"under water" or "under mud" and no place to safely park the boats.

We are already planning / scheming for 2012.  We are looking at another 
exotic location....I am pulling for Tahiti....others have reminded me 
that the South Pacific has no grids in FFMA.  AAAaaaaaaRGH!!!

I hope everyone did well in the June contest.  At K5QE, we had a monster 
opening Sunday AM.  After about Noon, the opening moved North of us.  
Maybe some people worked a few new grids out of that.

73 de Team K5N