3G1P

[4L5A]

3G1P News 18 August 2025.
We attempted to land today on the southeastern of the two Pajaros rocks. The very high hull and strong currents made it impossible for anyone in our group to land on the part of the island potentially offering a climbing opportunity. The only landing spot, extremely difficult to reach, was opposite to the above part of the island, and offered no access what so ever to it. Had we been able reach it, we would have ended under a very steep and slippery slope, impossible to for us to climb.

After our return back to Caleta Lobos, we had some in-depth discussions with our logistical crew, which consists of Juan - boatman and lead, Manuel, Alex, and Juan, Alex's brother. Studying the weather and sea forecast provided by the Coast Guard services, we concluded on the following plan for tomorrow morning, as we'll make another attempt to land, this time on the northwestern of the Pajaros islands.

Manuel will try to land in an area that seems to allow us to climb the rock. If he succeeds, he will install a rope secured by several pikes to assist us in the climb. Meanwhile, Alex and his brother Juan will install from the top of the rock two ropes that will allow them to hoist with nets the heavy sealed drums with our equipment, food, water, camping gear, generator and gas. Juan, our driver, will attempt to bring us close to the bottom of the rock, and assist us, along with Alex, to reach it pacing the entire process against the ocean hull and currents. It will be very, very tricky.

Since the ocean swell will increase significantly in the coming hours and days, we only have time for one attempt. Consequently, we scaled down our equipment and camping gear. As such, we will bring two radios, two laptops, one amplifier, and two antennas (plus one radio and one antenna for spare). We will take with one one tent and one generator only. Everything fits in three 180L sealed drums, plus the generator and masts.

[4L5A]

3G1P News from VE3LYC
We are on top of the large Pajaros rock. There is not a lot of space and very uneven. All the equipment, gen, etc. everything is on the island, at the base of the rock. We are bringing everything up and then we'll see what and how we can install things. I don't think that there is space for setting everything up, but we'll see.

73, Cezar

[4L5A]

3G1P start activity on 21260 now.

[4L5A]

Landing on the large Pajaros rock in the morning of Aug 18 went as planned, but we were unable to find any possibility to install our tent on the top of it. Consequently, we decided to operate under the open sky. This was fine during the day, but difficult at night, particularly since a chilly wind started to pick up around midnight local time, making it difficult to withstand the cold of the night. However, we had inflatable mats and sleeping bags which we were able to use. The highly unleveled top surface became extremely slippery after dark, as air humidity condensed on the old guano rock, limiting our movement severely. We began operating on 20 m CW in late afternoon, and continued to do so until about 7 UTC, when we were very tired and decided to rest for the night.

The second day we continued operating on 20 m CW at first, after which we moved to 15 m SSB. As the day progressed, the ocean swell became visibly higher, reaching just under the top of the smaller of the two Pajaros rocks, while the associated spray would cover it in its entirety. The little rock has a height of 12 m, while the larger rock, on which we landed, 20 m. while we were located 3-4 m below it's top. As the day progressed, the generator - which we placed on a relatively flat surface a couple of meters below where we were seating - received a lot of water spray, which forced us to consider shutting it down and moving it up, despite that there was no flat surface available for it there. As such, we had no other choice then stop our our activity temporarily.

Late in the day we managed to build a nice place for the generator, which was successfully started, allowing us to continue our activity. We operated all night in 20 m SSB, and didn't restrict the takers until we noticed that far two many of them called us despite having made previous contacts on other bands/modes. Thus, we decided to announce that we will only pick up new stations, which didn't contact us earlier, aiming to maximize the number of unique stations logged. The operation continued using only one station, as long as the propagation lasted. We tried to periodically check its opening, but the pileup subsided substantially.

During the evening of the previous day, we were informed by the Coast Guard that the sea condition will worsen to the point that on Aug 22 and/or 23 will reach a level of 4.1 on the 5 level scale. Consequently, they were preoccupied of our safety and indicated that they will re-assess the situation next morning. Thus, in early morning of Aug 21, Coast Guard announced us that they will come soon to pick us up. We immediately shut off our transmission and began preparing for evacuation. Before long we changed in wetsuits and later descended, under their guidance, the steep and slippery slopes of the big rock, following which we paced ourselves against the waves and swam through the high waves toward their boat. Most of the materials that we brought with us remained on the rock, nicely packed. They will hopefully be brought down at some point, but only future will tell.

We reached Caleta Lobos at about 17:30 UTC, after which we dried ourselves out, washed a bit, dressed in dry clothes, and breathed happily after a pretty daring extraction. This project was without a question a very difficult one, which included a number of risks that we were able to manage, a true adventure in every sense of this word. Its full story, with its details, and all the incredible twists and turns, will be certainly written and published later on. For the time being we are delighted to have been able to do it, and are sincerely grateful to all those who assisted us in the landing and extraction, as well as those who helped us along the way.

[4L5A]

3G1P News
The fishermen assessed the sea conditions this morning and decided against attempting to retrieve our components today. As such, we packed the rest of the components, which didn't make it to the island, and moved back to Iquique. Felipe is now shipping some of the stuff back home. His flight back to Puerto Vargas is on Sunday morning, Aug 24, while mine is in the afternoon of Monday, Aug 25. The fishermen will attempt to retrieve the rest of our equipment every day until they are successful, and keep us informed of the results. Interestingly, today around 9 am local time it rained. Then, around 11 am it rained against for bit. Not a lot, just enough to make us realize how lucky we were to not have had to deal with this on the island.

Next, we need to formally have this operation validated toward IOTA credit, after which we will uploaded the log to Club Log and open the OQRS. Please be patient.