Story 49DX/E088 Story from 49DX/E088 Botafoch isl activity. When we arrived at the resort of Portinatx, one of the first things I did was book an hire car for the up and coming weekend, Saturday and Sunday was going to be the days when we had some island fun, I'd advertised that we were going to activate a couple of islands on the Saturday and hopefully another one on the Sunday, secretly though I wanted to activate 4 islands on the Saturday, then hopefully revaluate our schedule Saturday night and see what we could do on Sunday. I'd been told by the hire company ( AUTOS MARI, S.L ) that my hire car would be ready for 07:00z ( 09:00 local ), all the equipment was gathered together the evening before, it was double checked, triple checked to make sure I'd not forgot anything. The following morning we were waiting at the car hire place for the guy to open up, wasn't long before I had a set of car keys in my hands, Ryan was eager to find out what car we'd got for our island excursions, was it a 4 X 4 jeep ?, nope it was for a little Chevrolet Matiz, Ryan was alittle disappointed but I had asked for the cheapest car they had ! I wasn't bothered what car we had as long as I could remove the battery from it for a couple of the islands I'd got on my hit list, anyway the bag was put in the boot, antenna ( with the 3 short radials already fitted ) was squeezed through the front passenger door and positioned between the two front seats, it was only when I finally managed to get it through the door when Sean said " Dad, you'd have been better off putting the antenna through the back passenger door, in my eagerness to get on our way I'd not noticed this tiny little white car had rear doors. Anyway, I drove about 100 metres around the corner from the hire place and pulled up, I turned the engine off and pulled the lever to flip the bonnet, could the battery be removed without much trauma ?, I had a screwdriver ( for the jubilee clips for the vertical antenna ) and a 10mm spanner, Sean lifted the bonnet and there was a little 35 Ah battery fixed in place with metal bar which was held by two nuts, the only spanner I had didn't only fit these nuts but it was also the correct size to remove the battery terminals, COME ON ! It wasn't long before we were on the C-733 heading towards iBIZA Town. I'd done a bit of homework a few weeks before, from GoogleEarth I'd sketched a rough map of iBIZA Town with directions to Isla de Botafoch, what good this did, within two minutes of entering the parameter of the Town I was lost, it was pretty straight forward though, all I had to do was have the main Marina on my right and follow the bay around, it wasn't long before I saw a sign with the words " Botafoch ". At this point I knew they were a 50/50 change of taking the wrong road, the causeway which leads to Botafoch island is split in two, the right hand side leads to the port which is a bit past botafoch, and I was lead to believe the left hand side of the causeway lead to Botafoch island. Suddenly the road narrowed and we were met by a security check point with a signpost stating " Port D'Eivissa Control Botafoch ", basically a small building with large side windows, I drove up to the check point and slowed right down to walking pace, I was expecting the see an Official at the window, but there was no-one there, to say I was pleased would be an understatement, anyway I took a few pictures then sped off down the causeway, more by luck than judgement we were on the correct side of the causeway and within 30 seconds or so we could see out target BOTAFOCH ISLAND ! At a guess, I'd say we arrived there at about 08:45z ( 09:45 local ), first task was to find a place for the antenna, looking around it came apparent that there was a house / apartment on the side of the lighthouse, windows were open, so we had to be quiet not to disturb the occupants, I saw a fence / railing which would be ideal to fix the antenna to, so Sean and I proceeded to extend the sections on the vertical while Ryan had a walk around the lighthouse grounds. A short stub pole was always fixed to the base of the antenna, so armed with a roll of heavy duty parcel selotape we fixed the antenna to the railings, my only concern was if the length of coax would be long enough to reach the car. As Sean and I walked back to the car a Police car drove towards us on the other side of the causeway, I thought that was it, the activation had finished before it had begun, I told Sean to take no notice of the Police car which proceeded to drive past us and carried on into the port / dock yard adjacent to the island, within a few seconds the Police and spun around and again drove straight past us and went back the way they came. It turned out the coax wasn't quite long enough, just a few metres short, so not wanting to disturb, I released the handbrake of the car and pushed it a few metres forward, sorted. Within a few minutes the power cable connected to the battery, little 706MKIIG was out of its box, PL259 connected and radio powered up, radio went straight to a busy .555. Due to the visit of the Police, I wanted to take all the photos / videos etc for proof as soon as possible, what a total nightmare it would have been if I'd have worked a load of stations first then had another visit from the Police only to be told to leave without the chance of taking pics. So I got all the pics / videos out of the way first then got ready for the first call. 49DX/E-088 Botafoch isl on the AIR. First call was made at 09:05z, propagation was good, within a few calls we were met by a decent pileup, within a few minutes friends such as 26DX059 Bill, 14KW605 Patrice, 19SD265 Rene, 14AT675 Laurent, 14FR003 Gui, 26NB352 Paul & 13AT242 Oliver were logged along with many more island hunters. It soon came apparent that the Police made their regular circuit past us to the port where massive Cruise Liners and tanker ships were now positioned, each time the Police drove past they seemed to stare that little bit longer each time. Anyway time flew by, just short of 2 hours and the 49DX/E-088 was QRT, a few more photo's later and the antenna was down and dismantled, radio was put back in its box, our attentions was now fixed firmly on our next target Island. I'd like to close by saying thanks to all that called in, and of course also thanks to those that called but didn't make it into the log. Catch you from the next one. 73 de Darran 26DX047 Ryan 26D193 & Sean (no callsign) return