I'm now back in the UK after the T32 saga ! I've read the many comments on the cluster and CDXC reflector, and thought I'd make a few responses.
 
Firstly about the location. It's pretty hot there (no surprises for somewhere 2 degrees North of the Equator) but what I was not fully prepared for was the salt. The continuous surf on the reef throws up a "fog" of salt spray
- worse at times, but always present. It destroys a Butternut an less than 48 hours. The SWR goes AWOL, and it is useless. So my Butternut and I have spent several evenings enjoying a hot shower together to clear the
problem. The problem is that you have to disassemble the thing to get it in the shower. By the end of the week, I had the whole process of demounting it, disassembling it, showering with it, re-assembling and re-erecting to about 45 minutes ! Whilst I cannot be sure, I am pretty sure the problem was salt deposits causing tracking across either the insulators in the tuning sections of the Butternut, or across the high voltage capacitors. Either way, it caused
some grief !
 
The actual location itself is fantastic - North facing coast (clear shot over the water to US, UK and JA) and the antenna was less than 10m from the water's edge.
 
Now to conditions. This is a very long way from Europe and the openings are short. Whilst the general noise level is very low on the island, there were evenings when the China Dragon was wiping out all but the strongest
signals on 40m. I did not spend too much time on 30m, as that would have meant operating through the night, and other commitments meant that was simply not possible. However, I hope I captured most of the 40m opening (morning UK time) and the delightful 20m opening around 17.00z each day,
exactly as the propagation programme had predicted. At 16.30 there was not a signal on 20m, by 16.40 the US appeared, and by 16.50 the first European. By 17.30 all Europe had gone. But at its peak the signals were big - Hilary, G4JKS was over S9 on SSB most days.
 
I tried 80m but it was hard. Tine, S50A, one of the big signals from Southern Europe, was just above the noise - how he heard me, I don't know. Congratulations to GM3POI, G3SED, G3XRJ and G4AMT for making it on that band. Some days, 80 was a wipe-out with tropical static, but we had
some good days as well.
 
I have seen the comments about DXpedition crowding on 40m. My operation was delayed a week and I had not planned on having to compete with the TX3D operation. It was a puzzle knowing what frequency to use. The band is pretty devoid of stations there, but I was concerned that if I went up to, say, 7015, I would never be heard under the EU rag-chewers that I could not hear, so I opted to stay on my originally planned 7002. What I had not planned for were the clicks from TX3D, which were +/- 1KHz ! Although he was operating up 2 KHz from my transmit frequency, my QSX
frequency was quite badly hit by these.

The "banker" bands were 40, 20 and 17 for me, although Europe on 17m was almost nil.
 
Listening specifically for Europe was also a challenge. I knew when I needed to QSX for EU, but there always seemed to be a station or two in the US or Japan to whom "EU" meant nothing. I got derision for insisting on EU
when the band was open to that part of the world. There is even a cluster comment about "stupid operator - no grey line to EU" at the very time I worked most of the G stations !
The problem was that only one US station calling at S9+ can mask a whole group of EU stations. Sadly it was often more than one ! Eventually the message got over, but it wasted valuable EU opening time.
 
I also found the standard of calling to be very poor from parts of Europe. I know my signal was weak most of the time, but the ceaseless calling by strong signals that clearly could not hear me, made copying those that could, a difficult task. I also got very frustrated by those who "worked" me, gave me a "QSL" or "TU" and then started to call again ! If you aren't sure, don't give a "QSL". I think the cluster has a lot to answer for here.

I am sorry to those who tried to e-mail me whilst I was there. The island has no mains power in many places, no land-line system, and internet by satellite from a very few places. I was not at one of those !
 
Main message from the trip - be ready for salt, and take a linear. Whilst the K3 performed well, I needed more "wellie" to have better control of the frequency.
 
Having said all that, it was great, and thanks to everyone who joined in the fun and made QSOs. I am sorry I was not able to be on more.
 
73
Don, G3BJ / T32BJ