Rob K5PI on 15m, 2001 WPX CW

Galapagos Islands Trip

I'd been hoping to make a trip this year that would let me indulge my two favorite hobbies, ham radio and scuba diving, so when Trey N5KO invited me to go to with a group to the Galapagos, it only took a minute for me to make up my mind. I made plans to leave on Monday, May 21 and to return Friday, June 1.

Getting to the Galapagos from Austin takes a few steps. One must first get to Quito, Ecuador and from Austin on American Airlines that meant stops in Dallas and Miami. I met up with Trey and Bob W6RGG in Miami and we spent Monday night in Quito at a very nice hotel, the Dann Carlton, and visited with Pedro Katz HC1OT, who had set up all our reservations in Quito.

The next day we were up early to catch the TAME Airlines 727 to the Galapagos. There are 13 major Galapagos Islands in all, with Santa Cruz being the most populous and the main tourist center, its nearby neighbor Baltra as the airport and military headquarters, and San Cristobal, the rather sleepy government center and our destination. We had heard that the main airport in Baltra was closed and that all flights from the mainland were arriving in San Cristobal. No such luck, however. The airport had reopened the day before and we landed in Baltra. Fortunately, Guido Rosillo HC8GR, knew this and made arrangements for us on the island hopper. We loaded into an eight seat, twin-engine plane and made the short hop to San Cristobal.

I was surprised at my first visions of the Galapagos Islands from the air. Since the islands are just below the equator, I expected lots of vegetation, but instead I saw large areas of flat, arid land covered with cactus. I saw very little beach, just an abrupt drop-off from the land down to a rocky shoreline.

Guido was waiting for us at the San Cristobal airport and after a short stop at his house; we headed up to the vacation home owned by Trey and two partners, the headquarters of the Galapagos Radio Society, and the super station HC8N.

Almost as soon as we left town for the trip up the hill, we went in to fog. At 2000 feet above sea level, HC8N is quite literally in the clouds, and the ferns lining the roadside made it clear that fog is very much the norm. Once at the top, we saw entire fields of ferns.

The house and the station have been a work in progress since 1998. Some of the first HC8N radio operations were from tents. The house is now three stories, and on this trip, a carport had been converted into a large kitchen and dining area that easily accommodated our group of eight.

GETTING READY FOR THE CONTEST

We polled the group, and decided to use TR software for logging. Two of us were TR enthusiasts, four were experienced users, and only one would be new to TR. After sorting through a big batch of serial cables, discarding a couple of duds, and hooking up two hubs, the computer network was ready to go.

As things came together at each station, we'd get on the air and make a few contacts to make sure everything was in order. Since I was slated to work 15, I put out a few CQs and was an instant celebrity. I started "shoveling QSOs" as Trey calls it and had several hundred in the log before I knew it. This was my first time on the end of such a pileup, and it took me a while to get into a rhythm. I stayed simplex since that was how I'd be working the contest, but used the RIT to work callers a bit off my frequency. It was almost impossible to pull anything out of the 10-15 who were calling zero beat. What a beautiful cacophony to hear 20 or 30 Morse code signals calling at the end of each brief contact!

The next morning, Wednesday, Trey and I went halfway up the 40-meter tower to shift the 3-element beam back into the horizontal plane. The rotor for the top 2 element 40M beam was dead, but that was more work than we wanted to take on and besides, it was pointing north where it needed to be. We did a little more tinkering with cables and the network, and we were almost ready to go. Rusty W6OAT, Jon N0JK, and Olli OH0XX arrived in the afternoon after a flight SNAFU. They were in sight of San Cristobal, when the pilot turned the plane around and returned to Quito because of a mechanical problem. (No parts on the islands, I guess.)

By Thursday morning, we were essentially ready to go. Rusty was getting up to speed on TR, and the rest of us were making more contacts to look for more bugs. The TS-850 on 160 was dropping back to half power occasionally, so we swapped it out with a 930.

Jon set up some simple satellite gear on the roof, worked several passes and gave out about 20 contacts in all, including several Europeans who were very happy to log a new one on the birds.

Friday, we were all relaxing and trying to get ahead on sleep. As we discussed contest strategy, Trey told us that 15 meters would be open around the clock and that except for an afternoon lull, so would 20. The low bands of course would be nighttime bands, so the only real wild card was 10. Trey said that in the world record 1999 WPX CW multi-multi from HC8N, 10 had been open almost around the clock with rates of 100 contacts/hour into Europe possible from 0900Z via long path. The strategy was simple -- call CQ on all the open bands. The operators were set up with Rusty on 10, me on 15, Bob on 20, Olli on 40, Ken on 80, and Jon on 160. Trey, Jon, and Ken all played key roles as relief ops so those of us on the most active bands could rest. There was a bit of band swapping, but for the most part, each op stayed on his primary band.

THE CONTEST

Ten through forty meters were very productive during the first hour with rates of 134, 169, 122 and 97. These were the best hours for 10 and 15. We were disappointed, though, when 10 closed abruptly during the 0800Z hour. Rusty was back at it, however, about three hours later and took the rate up to near 100 for several hours. The band closed again on Saturday, but this time much, much earlier -- about 0100Z, just after dark.

Fifteen meters was the "money band", accounting for a third of all contacts. Nine of the first ten hours were over 100, then things slowed during the 1000 and 1100Z hours (42 and 64) before roaring back to life as the sun came up Saturday morning. All day Saturday, rates were in the 80s and 90s. I'd hoped for a strong run into Japan Saturday evening, but the rate tapered off until the sun came up across Europe. I had a truly magic hour during 0800Z (2 AM local). I'd only slept about 3 of the previous 36 hours, but I really got “into the zone” and cranked through 95 contacts without ever breaking stride. It seemed as if we were being spotted on the European and/or Japanese packet cluster about every few minutes because the callers would come in groups of 5-7. Just as I’d work through those, another group would arrive - all good, solid signals and good operators

Bob's rate on 20M peaked in the fifth hour of the contest at 137. The rate dropped off precipitously during the day starting about 1400. Things would pick up again about 2100.

Olli had a strong first five hours on 40M, and then things tapered off a bit through the night until the band closed the next morning. Things were slower the second night.

Ken and Jon plugged away at 80 and 160 both nights, and made a good batch of contacts. Jon said conditions were quite good on 160 the second night, but there just weren't’t many signals on the band.

We ended the contest with 11,158 contacts after dupes and 1322 prefixes for a score of 52.3 million. Europe made up 44% of our total contacts, the US was 35%, and Japan was 12%. We contacted 132 countries in all, including Monaco, Ghana, Bahrain, Ogasawara, Dodecanese, Chagos, Macao, Syria, and Iraq.

We broke down the station right after the contest, and relaxed with another terrific meal prepared by Guido’s wife Chelita. Trey presented a number of contest plaques to Guido, and Guido in turn presented us all with certificates making us members of the Galapagos Radio Society. After a little more work collecting and consolidating the log files, it was off to bed.

ON TO SANTA CRUZ

The island of Santa Cruz is the center of tourism, and the town of Puerto Ayora is the center of activity. It’s a pretty laid back town, thankfully free of American restaurant chains, and one could walk the entire strip in 10-15 minutes. Most people sign up for multi-day cruises around the islands. There are boats with very simple accommodations all the way up to some very fancy yachts. They would make stops to see the volcanoes and the unique wildlife, but since I only had two and a half days, I checked into an inexpensive hotel (with window unit AC but no hot water - very few hotels had it) and looked for a dive shop that did daily trips.

I went out in the morning with the SubAqua dive shop and after a 45-minute boat ride, we arrived at Gordon Rocks. Gordon Rocks is a group of three large rocks that jut 50-100 feet into the air around a submerged volcanic crater. We were briefed on the challenges of this dive - similar for almost all dives in the Galapagos - strong and unpredictable currents, not only lateral, but also currents that swept up. The visibility would be varied and perhaps limited (30-60 feet typical, sometimes 15-20); and the water would be chilly (upper 60s F). We donned our full 6 mm wet suits and heavy weight belts and went over the side.

We regrouped underwater along the wall of the crater and immediately saw a sea lion slip gracefully by. We swam on at about 70 feet in a light current and worked our way around the rim of the crater. In most places and especially in the Galapagos, one has to look all around, both near and far, to spot all the things that can be seen. The big stuff that helped give the Galapagos a #1 ranking of top dive spots in Scuba Diving magazine are often overhead. Sure enough, I turned back and looked up just a few minutes into the dive and saw a large manta ray flying slowly above us. Just ahead, though, the divemaster was pointing up to something that was just coming into my view - a school of at least 25 hammerhead sharks! Hammerheads are regularly visitors to the Galapagos, and our divemaster told us that they feed in the open ocean (whew!) and apparently come to the islands to get their bearings and for parasite removal by various cleaner fishes.

Just as the hammerheads disappeared from view, my dive buddy pointed down to a rock just below us. Okay - it looks just like all the other rocks. She pointed again, but I saw nothing. Then it moved - an octopus, slightly larger than a softball, slipped over to the next rock apparently unimpressed by our strange appearance and bubbles.

A few minutes further, the divemaster pointed up the wall 15 feet or so to a large gray shape moving powerfully along. It was a Galapagos shark, an indigenous species with a reputation for curiosity and aggression. This one wasn’t interested in us, however. The divemaster, who’d been in the islands for ten years, told us that he’d never seen anything even close to a shark attack, but he said he personally witnessed seven incidents where divers ignored warning grunts from territorial male sea lions and ended up with a well-bruised calf from where they would clamp on and shake their heads.

We did another dive that first morning at North Seymour (a.k.a. Baltra) and saw some whitetip sharks, a couple of motley colored, lumpy stone fish, and another octopus.

The next day we headed out for a couple more dives, this time at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­South Seymour. At South Seymour we spotted a speckled flounder, several blacktip sharks, and on this dive, a half dozen female sea lions followed us along and periodically swam between us. The second dive began rather uneventfully, but about ten minutes into the dive we turned a corner and came into an area where a couple of currents intersected - in places it looked almost like heat waves off a distant road. There was a very large group of fishes -- hundreds of surgeonfish, yellow tail grunts, and other common fish, . . . and at least two dozen blacktip sharks. The sharks were lounging in groups of 2-5 in sandy patches and only moved occasionally to swim around and settle into a better position on the sand. We stayed and watched the show for maybe 10 minutes or so, and then our divemaster swam slowly up behind a group of three, moved slowly forward in the sand, and reached out a hand to stroke the tail of them. Accustomed to cleaner fish, I suppose, the shark didn’t seem to mind at all. I gave a couple of signals to the divemaster and he motioned me forward. I was expecting the sandpaper feel that their skin is supposed to have, but the tip of his tail was smooth. I decided I was pretty fond of all my extremities and so I moved back after just a brief touch.

I would certainly liked to have spent several more days there, but I had to fly back to Quito the next day. I spent my last afternoon at the Charles Darwin center, the visitor areas of which might have covered 20 acres. There was a small beach, displays on the history and ecosystem of the islands, and a good-sized facility for raising the indigenous giant tortoises for which the Galapagos are so well known. Because of the proliferation of a non-native species of rat and several other non-native predators, it is now necessary to raise all tortoises there until they are 2-3 years old. I saw a dozen adults as I walked through the facility, and they were huge! A guide told me that these adults were about 80 years old and that they would probably live to be more than 200! Their heads and legs were 5-6 inches in diameter, their shells were on the probably 2 feet by 3 feet, and they must have weighed several hundred pounds. In the past, sailors would take several of these giants on board for fresh meat during the voyage.

The next day, I flew back to Quito, arriving in time for a late dinner and a good night’s rest. The next morning, I was up early for an uneventful flight back to Austin. Thanks to Trey for the great opportunity and to the contest team for a great showing!

Copyright 2001 by Robert Brandon, K5PI