VK9ZM and VK9ZW 1989
Scenes from the Mellish Reef and Willis Island Dxpedition
By Victor Carnuccio, KD2HE
There were seven of us who met in Cairns, Austalia, on January 1, 1989. The members of the expedition were Joe Adams, VE3CPU; Ian Cambell, VE3IEO; Jim Kosaka, JR1RCQ; Bruce Miller, ZF2KN; Greg Potter, MN2L; Dave Schmocker, KJ9I; and myself. The crew of our boat included the skipper, Ron Brown; Shari Whiteside and engineer Stephen Sheehan.
We left Cairns on the M.V. Auriga Bay, which we had chartered on January 2 arriving on Mellish two days later. We returned by way of Willis about three weeks later. Unfortunately, this endeavor wasn't without it's mishaps. Tragically, Stephen Sheehan drowned in a diving accident about a week after our departure from Australia.
We did continue and made about 45,000 QSO's during our stays. I operated on RTTY for about an hour daily, putting the mode on Mellish for the first time.
Email: kd2he@arrl.net