ZD8SIX on Ascension
	Wednesday 8th November

My last day today, time has really flown by :>(  The flight from en route from the Falklands leaves Ascension at 22:50 tonight so I only have the daylight hours to play radio again. I hope to get another morning opening to Europe - fingers crossed! I am really covered in mosquito bites this morning. They must have come from last night’s operating as my CW went to pot from my continual efforts to stop the damn things from biting me! My feet have about two bites per square centimetre! I should have bought some insect repellent I think. Other visitors please note!

The One Boat golf course rumoured to be the worst golf course in the world according
to the Guiness Book of Records. The 'greens' are made from fine volcanic dust
and players use a square patch of green Astroturf when teeing off (I believe!)

Wow! A brilliant three-hour opening to Europe became my swan song. The band opened at 12:40 and my last QSO was at 15:55. In between, I worked over 150 stations from all over Europe including many new G stations. A surprise later in the day was EI5FK at 59+. It was a tough opening because signals came and went very quickly with extreme QSB. Sometimes they came back to my CQ at 59 and I never heard from them again! Trying to get full calls was occasionally very difficult and I wasted a lot of time trying to do so. However, it was really fun and I'm now pretty hoarse from all the yelling. This really made my trip worthwhile. New countries included: T7 and EI.

The old Cable & Wireless telegraphy cable landing in Comfortless Cove. It's really sad that these have been allowed to rot away. If you would like to know more about early telegraphy, take a look at C&W's history site.

Johnny and Lenny came around about 18:00 and we knocked the station down very quickly and managed to get everything into the cases which was a bit of surprise because of all the extra junk I’m taking back. This includes the obligatory ‘Ascension Island’ tee-shirts for the kids and I’m bring back a piece of red volcanic rock for Ted, G4UPS to remind him of his stay on the island (he doesn’t know yet!) We went up to the Volcano Snack Bar and had some beer and sandwiches. I we chinked the glasses and made a toast to 6m and I thanked them for all their help. I’ve now gone through customs only to discover my flights HAD been changed to Saturday anyway and they now had to be changed back to today. Oh well, if I had known I might have stayed on but I do have to be back in the UK tomorrow really (I learned later that there had been a good opening to the USA and Hawaii at 19:30 which I had missed!).

"DX de k1tol:    50033.0    ZD8VHF/B    ii22>fn44!!   1431Z "

I’m sitting in the departure lounge now writing this tale wondering if the in-coming flight from the Falkland Islands is going to be on time and wondering if we are going to be plagued by problems again. By the way, I discovered that this week’s Monday evening flight left and arrived on time!

Well the flight arrived and landed on time anyway at 20:50. Sod's law I suppose and I am now back in flooded UK.