Operating from the Manihiki Atoll in the North Cook Islands had been the shared dream of five hams from the Western Washington DX Club. They weren't just activating the 68th most wanted DXCC entity; they were dreaming of pileups.

The pileups they got were the unwanted pileups of malfunctions which began not long after they put the callsign E51MWA on the air on the 9th of October. Twelve hours in, their solar plant experienced a voltage loss and they were unable to start their backup generator. The team went QRT for several hours. Back on the air during the next few days, they suffered the failure of a power strip, they lost the use of one radio and then the high-power bandpass filters for 17 and 12 metres failed to work.

The final blow to their dream came on the 14th of October with a local power outage. The team got their backup generator started but then the generator and the power station's building both caught fire and were destroyed.

It was time to go home to Washington state for Rob N7QT, Brian N9ADG, James KC7EFP, Robin WA7CPA and Jack N7JP. The sixth operator, Violetta KN2P, a 21-year-old contester, was also scheduled to move on. She was headed to the PJ2T youth-led operation in Curacao for the CQWW SSB contest.

The team's plan had been to be on the air at Manihiki until October 20th. Instead they posted a message on their website on the 14th. [quote] "Without power options the team has no choice but to go QRT." [endquote] Six days ahead of schedule, it was over. As they packed, they added one more thing to their cargo: big plans that they alluded to in a message on their website. They wrote [quote] "As the team packs equipment for return shipment to the US, we are already thinking of the next DXpedition." [endquote]