CY9C – DXpedition to the “Graveyard of the Gulf”
Rare DX doesn’t have to be thousands of miles from civilization. It can be just a few miles offshore if it’s difficult enough to access. And that problem isn’t quite so bad when you have your own helicopter!
They call it the “Graveyard of the Gulf.” Over the centuries, hundreds of ships packed with immigrants heading to North America met their end on St. Paul Island, a 3-mile uninhabited stretch of windswept hills and jagged rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, just 15 miles from Nova Scotia’s northernmost tip (Photo A). But ghosts notwithstanding, it turned out to be an ideal home for the 2019 CY9C DXpedition.
We’d been there before. In 2016, led by Randy Rowe, NØTG; 11 operators set up camp at two separate locations on the island. That team achieved 68,000 QSOs and granted countless hams “a new one.” This time, we took a smaller team of seven operators: CY9C 2019 team leader Murray Adams, WA4DAN; Bill Engel, K5DHY (also the treasurer,). We set up at a single site at an abandoned lighthouse and weather station on what we called “the rock” (). It’s a barren plateau about 150 feet high at the north end of the island, separated from the rest of St. Paul by a treacherous narrow channel. We had a clear shot in all directions, including over the North Pole to Japan, where many CY9 enthusiasts had let us know how eager they were to hear from us.
