Story 49DX/E468 Story from 49DX/E468 illa Grossa isl activity (Part two, Sunday 05/07/2009). Now it was Sunday, on the previous day we'd already activated E-088 Botafoch isl, E-468 Grossa isl, E-448 Des Bosc isl, plus we'd tried to do E-093 El Caragolet isl but had ran out of time. Sean and I wanted to activate an island which I'd had up my sleeve for quite a while, in fact I'd wanted to do this island ever since I'd seen it on my first visit to iBIZA island in 1996. Sean and I arrived at the picturesque resort and started to have a look around, I managed to find a guy who was willing to take us to the island by motorboat, but I don't know what, something didn't feel right, I had negative vibes for what we was about to attempt to do. Anyway the Battery was removed from the hire car, everything was packed into our BIG BLUE suitcase, radio, coax, 3 litres of water along with a load of unnecessary stuff, plus not forgetting the car battery !, it was all packed in a way where when the suitcase was packed up by the handle everything was positioned correctly. The idea was I'd carry this and Sean would carry the antenna which had our umbrella taped to it. Now I knew why I had weird negative thoughts that something wasn't right, it was this suitcase, it weighed an absolute tonne !, I had problems walking in a straight-line with it, how the hell was I going to jump off a motor-boat onto a razor sharp volcanic rock with this suitcase weighing so much, I had to revaluate the situation because the guy with the boat was waiting down at the beach to take us. I sat by the side of the road for a few minutes wondering what to do, I'd wanted to active this one for more than 10 years, I had a chance to do it, but was the time right ?, as I was sat there in two minds I received a sms message from a friend asking me when was I going to be active, I quickly sent a text message to John 47DX101 and asked what shape the was band in, John's quick reply wasn't good, " band not good, very quiet " or words to that effect. That was it, my mind was made up there and then, " come on Sean E-096 Es Cana island was going to have to wait, we carried the stuff back to the car, while I refitted the car battery Sean walked back down to the beach and told the guy with the boat that our expedition to the island had to be postponed. Basically my lack of detailed planning might have been a blessing in disguise, having all that equipment and weight in that suitcase was a disaster waiting to happen, the amount of stuff had to be stripped back, all the unnecessary stuff left at the hotel, then what equipment we needed to take wanted putting into two smaller holdalls, this is what we did the following weekend. It wasn't long before we were sat in the car, we decided to have a drive down to iBIZA town and re-activate Grossa E-468 and possibly Botafoch E-088 until propagation improved, if the band did improve there was another island in our plans which had never been activated before. 30 minutes or so drive found us once again at the Capital of iBIZA, once again just like before I missed my turning and proceeded to get slightly lost, wasn't long though before we were at the security checkpoint, this is where we came upon a problem, the causeway to both Grossa and Botafoch was closed, blocking the way was some temporary barriers. A few weeks earlier I remembered GoogleEarth showed what looked like an alternate route which could lead to illa Grossa, this route took you through a maze of little roads, we had nothing to lose so we had to give it a go, we quickly turned around and within a minute or two we were whizzing around these little back streets trying to keep the sea on my left, with total luck we came across a gate which lead us onto a path which ran parallel to the causeway which took us to both islands the day before, bingo within a few seconds we arrived at the blue signpost which marked the entrance and the dreaded track which would once again take us on top of E-468 illa Grossa island. Once again this little minute car did the job of a monster 4X4 truck, the sump of the engine once again banged and crunched against rocks, boulders and god knows what, the suspension leaned to unmanageable angles but once again she reached the summit of E-468. Just like the day before, Sean and I quickly sorted the antenna and fixed it to the same tree, coax connected, power cable connected, then the radio was powered up to a very quiet band, we were expecting this though, so it wasn't a disappointment, to start off with just a steady flow of Italian stations were put in the log. Before any stations were worked, we once again took some pics / proofs, this was a little tricky because we were on the same island as the day before, same operating position, same antenna position etc, it was easy to prove we were on the island, this was simple because of pics and GPS etc, but I wanted to prove that we were on the island on the Sunday, this was done by video proof. It wasn't long before the band slowly started to open up, suddenly a good friend called in to say hello, this was 26AT114 Paul, I told Paul that I wanted to prove that I was on the island on the second day, Paul proceeded to state on the air that he worked me the day before ( Saturday ) and he went on to mention that the contact we were having was taking place on the following day ( Sunday ), I got all of this on video while at the same time I was filming around me the view of the island and nearby scenery ( some of this footage is shown on the 49DX/E-468 part two video ). I also got video footage of 26AT016 Paul working us, he only worked us on the Sunday, Paul sent a spot on cluster.dk, this can be found in the message archive. We also took photos of the port which branches off from Botafoch, because it was a Sunday, the port was closed, this was a stark contrast from the day before when they were massive cruise liners and container ships in the port. When we came to take a GPS position, I used a large stone structure which is on top of illa Grossa, I stood in the middle of one of these structures and received my exact longitude and latitude figures from the Garmin handheld GPS while Sean shot video and photo footage, once home these figures were transferred into GoogleEarth, which of course zoomed straight into the stone structure, cool or what ? ! Anyway after 2 hours of re-activating Grossa, the band was in good shape, last log entry was at 18:19 local time, now the band was in good enough shape we wanted to drive right up the coast of iBIZA, remove the car battery ( again ) and get all the stuff on a small rock, a rock with the name of El Caragolet island and referenced E-093, before all that, we had to dismantle all the stuff on illa Grossa island, this was done in double quick time, it wasn't long before the little white hire car was bouncing down the track off illa Grossa. El Caragolet island here we come ! Until the next one. 73 de Darran 26DX047 & Sean ( no callsign ) return