From: Colin Smithers
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 20:08:57 GMT

In Bob G3PJT’s excellent history of the contest ‘Reflections in a Rosebowl’, VE3EJ’s tips include topping up on sleep. Not so easy for the traveller. After three or four days of planes, cars, meetings, covid tests, border admin and station prep with added jetlag, the sheer excitement of ‘BERU in the morning!’ means not getting a solid rest that night either. Hours in, and once the adrenalin levels fall off the drowsiness eventually descends and my ability to differentiate between CC and XX disappears. Fortunately the sender slowed right down, helping me back to consciousness – this Caribbean station did claim those bonus points. Those who know me know I can powernap just anywhere, as others of you may have witnessed mid-QSO.

Following someone from band to band is the big fun in BERU. And of course it’s so useful to be able to predict the serial. So when operating SO2R with networked PCs and for the first time the number server issues a number that is out of sequence and back three – what to do? The other end repeats the sent number back with ‘?’, several times. Fortunately VK2GR’s morse was up to reading ‘Nr ok, nr ok, it’s the logger, it’s the logger’.  In the heat of battle fighting the loggers seemed the bigger challenge.

Being let out to roam after Covid the world has changed. It’s now clear to me that hotels everywhere are ‘open’, except that that means: Open apart from the bar and restaurant that shuts early with new (limited) menus, and maybe just shut some days. Oh, and we do not service rooms any more, although on day three you can have a fresh towel and shampoo. And we only allow one staff member on reception at any one time; It’s a Covid thing you know! And don’t mind rust in the plumbing – it soon clears (unlike the water in the shower tray). But as previously stated, they all charge fully. Everywhere is now under new management and with new front of house staff with a consequent loss of corporate memory and new names for bars and rooms. People that knew you and cross-arrangements with other organisations are long forgotten. But being in business, you feel for those who must have lost their shirts.

Fashions have altered too. In bars and restaurants water and soft drinks are now served out of large jam jars with thick, coarse threads – honest!

Renting a car in the Caribbean is always a dice roll. Mostly you pay a lot for a rust bucket with dubious and unbalanced shock absorption, and even more for the insurances (not needing to get into local bother at any cost). You can buy renters insurance – there is a Lloyds policy I believe and which is far cheaper – but the rental companies won’t accept it. For the very first time I had a new model, only 20,000 km on the odo and the kindly manager gave me some sound local advice: “Good, you have all the insurances, but remember not to park under coconut trees – they regard that as negligence.” Just as toast always lands butter side down, it seems coconuts always aim themselves at the windscreen. The true hazard for the uninitiated is, therefore, that the last empty parking spot is always the one under the coconut tree.

73, Colin Zf2CA, G4CWH, M3E