I am getting ready to take a repositioning cruise with Lindblad on the
National Geographic Endeavour in association with CasualDX. Leave Papeete,
Tahiti Oct 13 and end up on Easter Island the first day of the CQWWPhone if
anyone is interested. Day stops at Mangareva, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie
and a few of the FO islands. Have the call VP6UU for the Pitcairn group,
but awaiting information from FO and CE, submitted a couple of weeks ago.
As for the luggage topic: I figured I couldn't carry the TS-480, Samlex
power supply, a couple of the 30' fiberglass poles, wire for a bob-cat array
for 15M, etc. as carry on and certainly didn't want to trust checking it.
Lindblad has had good luck with LuggageFree which is a misnomer: $9/pound
or worse: The hard golf bag case I'm going to use is about $250 for 35#.
You DHL the box to their NY HQ, they wrap it in plastic, ship to their agent
on the other end, clear customs and deliver to your ship or hotel. I really
don't have any choice but to try this so will let you all know in November.
In retrospect, I probably should have gotten the Pelican case rather than
the SKB case as the locks seem better and TSA openable, but opted for the
cheaper version.
The remaining problem is that LuggageFree will not accept laptops with
lithium batteries so I need to find some light laptop using something else.
Seems like a lot to do for a few hours on each island, and the ship wasn't
even able to stop at Henderson and Ducie on the March trip out as the seas
were too high. Pray for Doldrums! (And a quiet hotel on Easter for the few
hours the bands are open from Easter!)
N0UU
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