Dx pedition on Clipperton March 1978 by Jean-Charles SACOTTE F9JS/FO0XA
Translated from French by Sylvie Jeanne.
The expedition on Clipperton atoll took place in March 1978.
In fact, the idea had been born ten years earlier but could not be put into practice through lack of money and mostly through lack of official consent.
How could such an idea form in the minds of a few radio amateurs who were by no means meant to roam the oceans and trudge in a scorching sun at the end of the world? What could have happened in the minds of a magistrate, a horticulturalist, a policeman, a doctor, an employee of the French Electricity Company, an employee of the French State Education system and a Swiss diver who was more used to the cold black waters of Lake Geneva than to the multicolored fish and the sharks of tropical waters?
It is quite simple: in our earphones and loudspeakers, we kept hearing signals sent from far away islands and we ended up wishing we could leave too. For this purpose we chose one of the most isolated places in the world: Clipperton.
A 30 meter high rock, a sometimes flooded coral ring enclosing a brackish water lagoon swept by the Pacific storms; 2 square kilometers of French territory, 2000 km away from Mexico and 5000 km away from Tahiti; a grain of sand discovered by the French, occupied by Mexico and officially given to our country through an arbitration of the king of Italy in 1931.
A tiny kingdom of thousands of seabirds and voracious crabs, protected by its coral reef and watched over by its sharks and murenas,Clipperton was a myth for all of us radio amateurs of the world. Since the expeditions of 1954 and 1958, Clipperton had been silent. We wanted to break that silence.
But you do not go to Clipperton like you go to Tahiti; the administrative obstacles put in our way made us aware of the difficulties and forced us not to leave anything to chance.
Getting ready.
I will not insist on administrative problems. To cut a long story short, the Telecommunications Administration of Tahiti, which was at the time the one to issue broadcasting licenses, would not issue those if we did not have a landing permit; the French ministry for overseas territories would not grant us a landing permit if we did not have a broadcasting license...
This situation lasted until the concerned secretaries of state brought it up themselves at the end of a cabinet meeting at the presidential palace.
From then on, the administrative obstacles were removed and both the civilian and military authorities gave us precious help and understanding. At last the positive attitude of the Administration allowed us to believe in the possibility to make our dream come true and it was the starting point of a race against time.
Until then indeed, time had not been taken into account. We were making plans, exchanging ideas; but suddenly we were being asked for names, dates, numbers, gear lists and these names became faces, the numbers became dollars, liters of water, gallons of oil.
The boat was anonymous no more. By mail, telex, telephone, radio, the team was being born in France, in Switzerland, in the USA, the necessary funds were collected and the equipment was gathered together.
The meeting place was set in San Diego, California. The dates were agreed upon. Clipperton was within our reach.
It might seem strange for such a large-scale expedition, but a week from departure from California none of the participants had met the whole team yet. It is because what became the Clipperton expedition was in fact the result of the combined efforts of several different groups of radio amateurs which got together in order to reach a common goal. Moreover, some of the operators happened to be unavailable for personal reasons and had to be replaced at the last minute.
Three groups were thus formed:
These three groups were going to meet in California just a few days before leaving...which does not mean they were to be idle in the meantime: each of them did their share of work according to what had been decided upon.
While the Swiss essentially took care of insurance issues and financial matters for Europe, the French concentrated on the administrative part of the operation and public relations, and they organized the medical resources: F5II was to be the doctor.Danielle, F6BFH's wife, was responsible for the management of the funds coming from all over the world.
In the meantime, in San Diego, the Americans gathered together all the necessary equipment which would allow 20 people of 3 different nationalities to live totally isolated for three weeks without any help at all.
I will not dwell on what the preparation was for each of us: it was long and tedious.
Nobody will ever know how many hours Alain F6BFH and his wife spent getting in touch with the media, how many letters they wrote to clubs and associations and to the best-known Dxmen to explain our project and seek their support.
Nobody will ever know how many kilometers Charles WA9INK drove throughout the USA with the same goal in view. For the record, let me just bring up the transactions the same Charles and Herb W6QKI made to find and rent the ship, the “Phillippa”, an old submarine chaser that was going to lead us to Clipperton commanded by Jeff, a US Navy officer who spent his vacation commanding charter boats in the Pacific.
We owe a special mention to our 67 year-old most senior member, Hoppy W6SO, an authentic hero of the Pacific war, who started this campaign buying and storing all the food and material support.
Lastly, nothing would have been possible without the broadcasting equipment. It was especially prepared and put at our disposal by Herb W6QKI who was at the time the manager of Atlas, Denton and Wilson companies.
On March 14th 1978, after an unforgettable reception organized by John W6RTN and the Southern California DX Club at the San Diego Yacht Club, the Phillippa left San Diego harbor in front of a group of friends and television cameras.
At last, the adventure was starting!
20
men on a boat
We had hardly left the harbor when radio amateurs all over the world were seized with a frenzy.
Strange symptoms had already begun to appear in San Diego over the last few days: 144MHZ repeaters spoke French and broadcast all over the area the conversations of that bizarre group of Europeans who kept getting lost in the streets or on the freeways while looking for a supermarket where they could find an essential or unexpected object.
Californian radio amateurs helped us as best they could. What discipline, what efficiency! We were far from European relays!
On March 14th a new station appeared on décametric wavebands: F5II/Maritime Mobile, sometimes replaced by F6AQO/Maritime Mobile.
An Atlas 350XL transmitter-receiver, a 12AVQ vertical antenna, and traffic started. It was to stop only in view of Clipperton, but the landing could even be described and commented upon live to FC9UC who ensured a daily contact from Corsica.
Almost 5000 contacts were made during this trip. We started to get an idea of what to expect. We got ready to face the pile-ups and we perfected our strategy: organization of the stations, propagation estimates, operators taking turns, preparation of the traffic logs, and so on.
Life on board was getting organized. Since there were not 20 bunks available on board the Phillippa, some of us had to camp in the living area. They did not regret it because the heat was hard to bear in the cabins.
The Mexico-American cooking was not really appreciated by the French team...until François F6AQO took over.
The radar had quickly broken down. The radio navigation equipment was disrupted by our broadcasting. The alternating current generator also stopped working. Despite all of that, morale was high like the weather and Jeff was leading his ship straight to the goal.
After we sailed past the Revilla Gigedo Islands, the sea got rougher. Willy HB9AHL fell down on the deck and got a cut above the eye. It was the baptism of fire for Jacques F5II, the expedition doctor. On a rough sea, without any anesthetic, he put stitches worthy of the best surgeon with a thread and a needle...and Willy did not let out a cry of pain.
Sunbathing on the deck alternated with attempts at satellite links. We were utterly alone in the middle of an ocean peopled with sharks, playful dolphins and flying fish.
With the traditional navigation equipment, Jeff told us we were approaching Clipperton. At the appointed time the island was in front of us. There was a triple hurray and then only the purring of video-cameras and the clicks of cameras could be heard, soon covered with the piercing screech of the birds.
Clipperton at last!
As a precaution, Jeff decided to sail around the island first. We went past the famous rock, a landmark for ancient sailors, a jagged and sinister block of black rock covered in white guano over which the rags of a French tricolor were flying. Then we saw a low coastline behind reefs, a few coconut trees, and the remains of a WWII wreck marking the only possible landing spot according to navigational charts.
Oh God! How inhospitable a place this is! No shelter, no trees! And yet, this is where the latest expedition has settled. Now we do understand their difficulties.
A long straight line allows the building of an airstrip.
Port! Another straight coastline and here is an oasis in the middle of a desert. In front of us, coconut trees, hundreds of them.
“Here.”, Jeff simply says.600 meters away from the coconut grove the anchor goes down where the charts show the water is very deep: excellent mooring. The Pillippa will stay there for a week.
The landing and the unloading were easy. The sea was calm. During the ceaseless comings and goings between the ship and the coast, only one inflatable dinghy capsized while going over the race, that wave sometimes reaching several meters in height which eternally rolls at the limit of the coral plateau; nobody was hurt.
The first dinghy carried an Atlas 350XL transmitter-receiver, a 12AVQ vertical antenna and a battery, and of course the security equipment ,a small VHF and some food and water. Less than ten minutes after having set foot on land, Olivier F6ARC made the first of the 29,069 contacts of the week - he had not even taken off the two life jackets we had provided him with since he could not swim.
Within the first day we had to unload two tons of equipment and carry them on our backs over 700 meters of sharp coral in a scorching sun.
The heaviest going was the carrying of the three generators and the 500 meter coaxial cable. But by the end of the day everything was in place; the French tricolor was even flying in the wind.
The nine antennas - among which five mono-band directional antennas - were fixed at the top of the nine meter high masts. The generators were working and were not to stop.
Oh how cool the shade of the coconut trees was!
The main station - operating only on the 14MHZ - was set up in an old and quite derelict Filliod shed which dated back to the 1968 military missions. The two other stations were set up under tents: one was dedicated to 28MHZ by day and 3.5 and 1.8MHZ by night, the other one to 21MHZ and 7MHZ.The three stations worked around the clock.
In addition, a station for 50MHZ and a VHF station for satellite traffic were set up outside. A fourth decametric station ( Atlas 350XL + 12 AVQ ) was even set up in the corridor of the Filliod shed and allowed us to add a few dozen contacts to our score.
The different operators were extremely active; yet do not think we were the slaves of our mikes and manipulators. It is true that the traffic never stopped and an impressive rhythm was maintained, but relaxation also had its place.
We had been commissioned by the authorities to do a kind of inventory of the place. We thus took photographs of all the buildings in ruins that had been erected by the French Navy a long time ago; we mapped out the wrecks scattered along the coast and even counted the coconut trees: more than 700 adult trees nowadays when there were only 2 of them at the beginning of the century.
The presence of numerous sharks and murenas together with the violent crashing of the breakers over sharp coral made swimming dangerous. In spite of that, we were obliged to get into the water to retrieve the heavy 200 liter cans of gas floated from the Pillippa. The sea was warm, the sharks were more curious than malicious. We got to know the race and the traps of the coral. We thus ended up going swimming twice a day.
We evoked vacation villages but as a precaution, we always wore strong shoes and one of us kept watching out for sharks approaching.
We took turns walking around the island, but always in little groups: 1 kilometer of heaven and 12 kilometers of hell.
We climbed up the rock where the ruins of an old lighthouse remain; it witnessed the tragedy of a forgotten Mexican garrison whose members for the most part perished devoured by sharks or consumed with illness. The last surviving male was murdered by the few women he had turned into slaves. It happened in 1917.
We found the well-known wrecks of a seventeenth century galleon and of a WWII LST with ammunition boxes still in place. We also found the remains of a small yacht whose name and end will never be known.
The sea is not hospitable around Clipperton. It may abound in fish and crayfish but it also conceals many dangers, among which one we thought had disappeared a long time ago: pirates. Right, you read correctly. We met pirates.
At the end of our stay, a sailing boat came near the island. A bearded and tattooed American - as in the best novels of the kind - and a few young Mexicans, all of them holding guns, came on board the Pillippa under the pretext of asking for gas.
Our number, the determination of the captain and his crew and the one and only gun we had as armament proved enough to keep them at bay.
As the person in charge of the expedition, I asked to see their passports. Only the American had one. On checking, we found out that the man was known to the American police for being involved in the mysterious disappearance of the crew of a yacht - yacht that he would afterwards have disguised and sold.
I could keep on writing forever about the expedition but I'd rather end by giving a few numbers.
We broke the world record with 29,069 contacts against 18,000 for the preceding record.
Re-embarkation and reloading were difficult in the midst of huge waves. Men and equipment had greatly suffered.
Hugh WA4WME was sunburned and even had to be hospitalized as soon as he was back in the USA after he had been taken off the boat for health reasons in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, during an unscheduled call. François F6AQO suffered from a high temperature caused by a cut on poisonous coral in spite of his wearing safety shoes.
Talking of which, have you ever used a medical thermometer graduated in Fahrenheit degrees? Jacques F5II - our doctor - could not make head nor tail of it!
But on board the Pillippa - which looked more like a gypsy camp than the proud ship it was at the start - some of us were already talking about doing it again.
The success of the expedition and the reception our film and photographs got in the USA as well as in France led us to found the Clipperton DX Club, with the intention to maintain the spirit that had been our driving force and favor other initiatives.
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