At first, I thought I worked the VU7RG on short path at 0130 on 40M. But because the PY's (?) were also so loud (40 SSB), I'm thinking maybe it was actually LP. Of course, at grey line, the ionosphere is in a real state of flux (sorry - bad pun), and we must have had some beneficial ducting going on. They were very loud for about 20 minutes or so each night. I am also surprised that we didn't get drowned out or clobbered by the East Coast or even EU - but that must have been because VU7 was only just getting light, and the D layer was lifting for us as it was starting to charge for them. This would have created the "shield" that prevented the East Coast and EU from working them. And we probably heard the Brazilians as loud as we did because they are in the Southern hemisphere with summer time conditions?
Maybe it was actually multi path? Hmmmm.