It's early Thursday afternoon and we have a couple of more days
left on the island. It has been an awesome trip and we
have been talking about locations for our next adventure in
2010. I'm working on a list of lessons learned, so that we
don't forget everything we've learned during the last week and
half.
To bring everyone up to date, I received my
Bahamian callsign on Monday. All it took was a quick trip
back to the Public Utilities Commission of Collins Avenue in
Nassau. Ms. Whyms, who handles all of the amateur radio
licensing is a joy to work with. My original choice of
calls signs was C6ACK (to go with K2CK), but this call was
already issued. I left the decision in her hand and I was
issued C6ASH which is an awesome call. Monday evening I
had a chance to break the new call in and my first contact was
with FM5WE, Guy in Martinique on 20 meters.
Propagation
has been up and down all week. We've had some incredible
6m opening, but had curtail activities on 6 because we were
getting in a neighbors baby monitor. I'm pretty sure she's
convinced that we are at the start of an invasion by space
aliens. Oh, well - Next time we'll have to find a place
further from the neighbors. 10 meters has been the most
surprising with openings to well past 10pm on most nights.
Hard to believe this much propagation with a single sun-spot.
Ham radio has not taken up all of our time. Tuesday we
spent some time downtown Nassau where the cruise ships docked.
I picked up a couple of t-shirts in the straw market. The
trip reminded me why I really dislike being surrounded by so
many rowdy tourists. Here is panoramic photograph of
downtown on Bay street looking towards the straw market:
Most everyone downtown is either a tourist off of the cruise
ships or supporting the cruise ship industry. See all the
victims (uh, er, tourists) mulling around downtown, it is not
hard to see how Americans get a bad rap with the rest of the
world. We are doing our best to, as Rick Steves would say,
"go local" during our trip.
Yesterday we spent some time
just East of Cable Beach, next to the resorts. This was
the best beach I've seen during our trip. We had a chance
to have conversations with many of the locals. That
evening the group took me out to dinner at the Twin Brothers
Restaurant on Arawak Cay. The restaurant was suggested by
our friends from Cable Beach and the food and atmosphere
exceeded all of our expectations.
Craig is providing his much needed(?) information to the group.
Renee working a pile-up on 40 meters.
Craig, helping Renee work a pile-up on 40 meters.
