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Weather looks great, blue sky. Local time 10:30 am, we just left the small fishing harbor of Koninos Pirgos in the south of the main island Crete. The temperature is 28°C and sunny. The boat is fully loaded with passengers staying in the Hotel Little Inn. We are heading to Paximadia Island, one of the coastal island of Crete, with IOTA reference EU-187. Everything is ready for our 2 to 3 our stay on the Island. The hotel owner, Nicos, allowed us to use his small Honda generator. The antenna is packed in it’s traveling holster, securely held by Luke, ON4BB. The radio equipment FT900 and Power supply is packed in a small traveler suitcase. We are waiting for what should come, ready and enjoying the beautiful blue sea. We were to reach our target after a 1,5 hour boat trip from the main island.
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Bill, ON5JE, is looking around to find a suitable landing spot. We are now approaching the island PAXIMADIA. Paximadia island consists of two small rocky islands almost hooked on each other. Our target is one of the landing places on the northernmost part of the island. Our lading spot is a small bay on the south side of the island. The island itself is totally inhabited .The only living creatures are birds.
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Here we finally are. We just arrived. A small ladder helps us leaving the boat. Bill, ON5JE, is already rolling out our power cable drum of 100 meters. We intended to leave the Honda generator on board.
It was too difficult to unload this generator from board and we did not want to disturb our fellow passengers who were there to relax and swim away from the boat..
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The antenna is almost assembled by Rene, ON5KH, and Bill, ON5JE. Luke, ON4BB, is taking care of the radials and traces them in the proper order. Our temporary operating place, where we could find some shade from the burning sun, can be seen on the left of the picture.
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Finally we installed the antenna and found some time to pose in front. From left to right, Rene ON5KH, Luke ON4BB, Bill ON5JE and Mariette XYL of ON5KH. The only suitable spot we found in the direct vicinity of our landing spot was a rock formation 10 meters away from our operating place. The vertical antenna made by ON5JE, based on an idea of Dirk, ON5CT, was held in place by some small boulders found on the spot.
Most of the radials were held in place by wrapping them at the end to a boulder. The coax cable runs from the tuning box to the transceiver, partly through the salty water of the Lebian see. The picture looks into the Northwest direction. The island edge raises up directly after our antenna. So not an ideal pace for an antenna for sure.
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Modern technology was also available on this small boat that we traveled with. To the right the GPS display, reading our actual position. On the left showing a detailed map giving geographical information of the island Paximadia where we were heading too. The coastline can be seen from the right, where the small cross in the middle of the screen indicates our target and the dot between our target and coastline is our actual position. The picture was taken about one hour after we left the main island Crete.
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