26DX/CU001-CU002-CU004 WWRO ISLAND FESTIVAL 2009 Story from 26DX/CU001-002-004 activities. As a newcomer to DXRC, I was looking forward to getting into the action. It wasn't long before I had the chance to jump in at the deep end. The DXRC Islands weekend and the WWRO Island Festival allowed me to do something I had not done before because of restrictions. I was going to do my first multi Island activation. There was almost no planning at all, just a quick decision on which Islands to visit. As the festival covered only two days, I had to choose Islands that I could drive to and where I could operate with minimum equipment. For Saturday I chose to do Walney Island in the morning and Barrow Island in the afternoon. Both are very close to my home and close to each other. The team consisted of myself on radio duties and my xyl Pauline on Coffee and camera duties. First qso from Walney was a nice suprise, 304 HR Hieko. Although conditions were not grea, there was a steady flow of traffic mainly from northern Europe. A group of four Germans to end the session which logged 46 from 12 countries. Pretty good for small station in poor coditions I thought. Fire up the DX Bus and on to Barrow Island. With major construction going on at Barrow Island it was difficult to find a good location to work from. We settled on some high ground I had used for DX before and waited for conditions, and waited, and waited. Finally we hooked fellow IOTA op's 14DA/AT27. Most of our log entries were from Southern Europe this time. By now we could see who the big hunters were. I must say at this point that the 6th June is my wifes birthday, and she had joined me without complaint. I promised her we would not stay late and would go out to dinner to celebrate. After a couple of hours of hard work calling and listening, we made qrt and home. Only 38 in the log this time. We hoped for better luck on Sunday. We had a late start on Sunday, we had Grandchildren staying over so we didnt arrive at Roa Island until around 1200z. We found the place full of tourists and windsurfers. We had to park well away from the ideal place, but with cunning and patience we steadily made our way towards the waterfront by pinching parking places as they became vacant. It was amazing how the conditions improved as we got to the seafront. First in the log today was one of my expedition partners from my old group, 26AT143 Nick. When he heard where we were, he and his YL came over to visit. This was a better day and although conditions were qsb, the log book was looking a little better than Saturday. by 18.00 local time, I was ready for qrt, my wife said we should stay for another hour or so. (I need to take her more often). So we continued for another hour. We closed with just under 90 in the log. In those conditions I was more than happy with the results. Over 170 logged for the weekend. :-)))) I would like to thank My wife for her help and support. Thanks also to Nick 143 for his help and to all those that gave me support on my arrival to DXRC and during this Island weekend. We are looking forward to the next opportunity already. Trevor 26DX015 & Pauline return