Staying at Toubana Hotel in St. Anne
My operation from Guadeloupe is from the La Toubana Hotel & Spa in Saint Anne.
Getting There
Enjoying a relaxing dinner at the Comfort Inn & Suites Boston Airport. Do we care that Air Canada cancelled our flight? Heck no! There’s always plan B.
Point and shoot. A rough translation for Pointe-à-Pitre is “point and take a picture”. So, I did.
Deserted Boston Airport Of course it’s deserted. Most Americans were home eating desert because it’s Thanksgiving Holiday.
The Hotel
La Toubana Hotel & Spa
Pool Bar. Every hotel needs one
Our Bungalow. Looking into our bedroom
The Caribbean coast.
Looking down from our high location at the coas
There are several bungalows available at this resort.
Rental car. The Mercedes ran fine around the island.
Radio Stuff
Goofy WJ2O. Doing my best Rodney Dangerfield impression. I’m always overly
excited when I get to a location, hook stuff up and it all works!
Screwdriver antenna. This was a little different set-up for me. Decided to just mount the
antenna on the ground and spread the radials out.
At the radio. Caution: Ham Radio Operator at Work
Very Important Ham Radio Poses
The Gentry.
The Dauer.
With the understanding of how the CEPT Licensing Agreement works, I assigned myself the callsign FG/WJ2O.
Dave’s Station
Equipment:
Elecraft K3
Dell Inspiron Mini Laptop
Heil Headset
Little Tarheel II Screwdriver Antenna
Ameritron SDC-102 Antenna Controller
MFJ 1979 Telescoping Whip
2016 CQ World-Wide CW Single Operator Low Power Claimed Score
Traveling to Guadeloupe
Well, the map shows the original plan. It turns out Air Canada decided to move the flight back 2 days. That was totally unacceptable and unbelievable that a major airline would do that. It was nice that they refunded my money, but I had booked a non-cancellable room at the Sheraton Airport Inn both at the beginning and end of the trip. Even after pleading that it was Air Canada’s fault, they didn’t care. My booking agent, Expedia.com, was zero help.
So, adding to my “corporate revenge” list Air Canada, Sheraton and Expedia.
Fortunately, even though it was last minute, I was able to secure us flights aboard Norwegian Airlines. They fly non-stop from Boston to Pointe-à-Pitre. Norwegian does not partner with the usual on-line zero support websites so you have to look them up directly.
We drove to Boston, spent a wonderful evening at Comfort Inn & Suites. They let me park there for a week and they shuttled us to and from the airport.
To take advantage of an Air Canada non-stop flight to Pointe-à-Pitre we were going to drive to Montreal and spend the night first. [Original plan, see text]