TX9A Team will be active from Tubuai Island, IOTA OC - 152, Austral Islands, 25 April - 5 May 2025.
Team - 9A2NA, 9A3MR, 9A7Y, DK8ZZ.
They will operate on HF Bands.
QSL via DK8ZZ.
The Tubuai Islands are a lost archipelago
Straddling the Tropic of Capricorn between the 20th and 30th parallels, the five islands of the Tubuai archipelago encompass almost everything that makes French Polynesia so appealing. Here, on these remote and rarely visited islands you will find a combination of turquoise lagoons and the beauty and majesty of the high islands whose cliffs the waves crash noisily against. With their rocky shores, these islands are reminiscent of the Marquesas Archipelago and the blue of their lagoons are reminiscent of the Society Islands.
An interesting fact is that the Tubuaiai or Ostral Islands, marking the southern border of French Polynesia, are the last piece of land as far as Antarctica, recognized as the edge of the world at the 70th parallel. Between these two points lies the vast Pacific basin. These thousands of miles are traveled each year by humpback whales making the journey to Tubuai during the southern winter in July, August and September.
Approaching Tubuai Island by airplane you will first see a beautiful oval, incorporating shades of green and bordered by an azure band. Looking closer you can recognize that the oval is a lagoon, wide, large and very beautiful. The island looks as if someone had gently placed an oval ring in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, appearing to the surprised airplane passenger in the vast ocean blue expanse as if out of nowhere.
Population of Tubuai
In Polynesian, Tubuai is called Tupua'i. In this “outpost” on the ocean coast lives six thousand three hundred Polynesians, which is only three percent of the population of Polynesia. These islanders have a distinct cultural identity and their own language, Reo Tuha'a Pae, which they still speak. This language is spoken on five islands: Rurutu, Rimatara, Raivavae, Rapa and, of course, Tubuai.
Islanders and colonization: unintentional genocide
The history of these places has tragic pages: the arrival of Protestant missionaries at the end of the eighteenth century led to a tenfold decrease in the population in just a few years. This was due to diseases brought from Europe, to which the islanders had no immunity, and alcohol, to which the islanders were powerless. The Polynesians also died of homesickness: the missionaries forbade them to dance their favorite dances, as well as to worship their gods: very quickly, from 3,000 people on the islands remained only three hundred - a sad result of European English colonization.
Soon after the arrival of the missionaries, the traditional pre-European society collapsed under the onslaught of the new order, unable to bear the weight of depopulation and the abandonment of old beliefs that had provided the backbone of society and strong social ties. At that time, Tubuai suffered the same fate as other Polynesian islands - it came under French protectorate in 1842 and then was annexed to France in June 1880.