ANNOBON ISLAND

Annobon is a small tropical island of volcanic origin. It is approximately 17 km square and is surrounded by other small, uninhabited islands.

This community of about 1,000 inhabitanst is administered by Republic of Equatorial Guinea. The Annobonese´s main economic activity is fishing, which is outstanding during fish migrations (mainly in September). Fishing is done using primitive and fragile, small flat-bottomed canoes called “cayucos” . Agricultural production is limited by the volcanic soils found on the island and much of the food consumed is brought in by ship from Equatorial Guinea. The island was discoved by Diego Ramirez de la Diaz, a spain sailor in 1470 and named as Isla San Antonio. Later on it becomes a Spain colonie together with Fernando Poo. In 1778 Potugese and Spain parted the coasline and Annobon became in 1779 a part of Spain, and Principe e Sao Thomee as Fernando Poo become a Portugese Colony. In 1801 a small fortessa was build on Annobon Island, and in the same year Spain gave also rights to British in using the island as a habour for fresh water. In 1959 Equatorial Guinea become an own Spain province and Annobon a second owe, but did not become an own government. In 1968 the island become a part of the new formed land of E.Guinea. The village of San Antonio de Pale, inhabited by about 600 people. A second small village, named San Pedro is located near Punta Dudjigue.

 3C0R ---> The Daily DX reports first hand information about the recent operation from Annobon. The operators left the island two days earlier than expected due to a forecast storm which would have made it difficult to get back on time. All of the 23,800 QSOs were made by Elmo/EA5BYP and Vic/EA5YN, as Roberto/3C1RV was very sick and unable to operate while Ramon/3C1GS had other duties that had to be done. Hopefully the logs will be available on line in about two weeks, but it should be noted that, due to computer problems, the QSOs had to be handwritten. Plans are being made for a future activity with more operators. QSL via EA5FVY (Angel Garcia Mendoza, P.O. Box 3045, 03080 Alicante, Spain). The web page for the operation is at http://web.jet.es/lynx/annobon/annobon.htm <425DX 441, 16 October 1999>

3C0 - 3C0R became active from Annobon after 20.00 UTC on 15 September. The team has already had several problems: rough seas which delayed their departure from Sao Tome, sea-sickness, one of their three laptops damaged during a thunderstorm, a problem to a generator which prevented them from using the amplifers (but it should have been fixed by now). QSL via EA5FVY (Angel Garcia Mendoza, P.O. Box 3045, 03080 Alicante, Spain). <425DX 437, 18 September 1999>