Sailing in the Whitsundays - A view from above...

After several successful flights of our Mariner Drone from a stationary platform it was time for the next step - aerial images of Lucey Blue sailing.

The task of sailing while flying the Mariner Drone was a little daunting, but the promise of unique photographs helped us overcome our concerns. With Lucey Blue gently sailing out of Cateran Bay we launched the Mariner Drone from the flight deck – our rear solar panels.

The images of Lucey Blue underway were nice and we landed safetly back on the forward trampoline after about 10 minute in the air. However, the majority of the photographs were taken from too far away for the wide angle GoPro camera to show much detail.

Given our partial success the decision was made to haul up the spinnaker and try a second flight. This time the plan was to fly the drone right alongside Lucey Blue. The images from the second flight were substantially better, but there were a few tricky moments - including when the Mariner Drone disappeared from view behind our spinnaker!

Flying a drone blind while sailing towards your airborne position certainly adds to the excitement level. I am glad to say we experienced no mid air collisions and despite running out of battery power before landing back on Lucey Blue we declared our mission a success.

After the Mariner Drone adventure we decided to take a few photographs of Lucey Blue under different sail configurations from the dinghy. Have we ever said we love our new radial sails?

The kids all enjoyed the dinghy ride – you don’t often get to see your own boat sailing and even though we never cracked five knots it was a great way to spend a morning!

Bait Reef - Aerial images from Mariner Drone

On one of those magically still days out at Bait Reef we decided to launch the Mariner Drone to capture the view from above Lucey Blue.

The view proved to be spectacular with the Stepping Stones floating in an azure ocean and Hook Island visible on the horizon.

What a nice place to learn how to fly and what a great place to go for a swim...

North East Herald Cay - Aerial images using GoPro Hero 4 on a Mariner Drone

On our second day we decided to launch the Mariner Drone to capture some aerial images of North East Herald Cay with our GoPro Hero 4. The Mariner Drone did a great job - despite some unexpected turbulence near the edge of a thermal behind the sand cay - and we soon had some cool images!

North East Herald Cay has a physical form that is similar to East Diamond Islet - althought the sand cay is wider and more angular in shape.

The photographs allowed us to target our snorkelling trips and provided an interesting perspective on the reef around our chosen anchorage.

Mariner Drone video of our catamaran at East Diamond Islet in the Coral Sea...

We love the isolated coral cays in the Coral Sea - amazing colours, incredible underwater visibility, abundant bird life and patches of spectacular coral.

This low-resolution video does not do East Diamond Islet or the GoPro Hero 4 camera justice, but on a small bandwidth connection it is the best we can upload at the moment.

Enjoy...

East Diamond Islet, Coral Sea.....a long way from anywhere!

....Helllllllooooooooooooooooooooo, Hellllllooooooooooooooooo. Is there anybody out there? Strangest feeling bobbing about off a small island in the middle of the Coral Sea....just us and the Boobies, Terns and Frigate Birds...oh, and the SHARKS!

I (Sam) keep scanning the horizon for signs of human life...but apart from the odd container ship which passed us far to the East earlier in the week, we've seen nothing. No one at all! Feels a bit 'Waterworld' to me. This said, I did nearly fall off the back of the boat about 10 minutes ago when our first small plane flew past (again, well to the East, but still...it was a plane)! De plane, De plane! :) I'd like to think there were real live people in it too. I wish they'd come over to say hi!!

We've been playing with the drone today, which helps show what a truly amazing place this is. The colours defy description. It looks like Lucey Blue is levitating above the water. We are anchored in 10 metres here, and the bottom is clearly visible (and so are the SHARKS)! They are only little reef sharks, and we've only seen seven at once....so it's not a huge problem, but when signs of life are few and far between...it'd be nice if they comprised something a tad more cuddly...if you know what I mean? Dolphins would be nice!

Anyway, I'm rambling....call it cabin fever. We are getting ready to go ashore and take photos of Hermit Crabs. Missing the world, but enjoying the serenity.

Over and out!
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Mariner Waterproof Drone - Maiden flight at Lady Musgrave

A while back we purchased a waterproof FPV Mariner Drone (now also know as the FPV Splash Drone) from Rise Above in Sydney to capture our adventure on Lucey Blue from above. We love to muck around with our cameras underwater and the idea of capturing our surroundings from a different perspective was attractive.

Our first few flights on land were rather exciting as we had no experience with this type of kit, but Rafi from Rise Above helped us out when we hit trouble.

We decided to conduct our maiden over-water flight at Lady Musgrave. To be safe we did a test run without the GoPro camera attached. The crew of Lucey Blue were pleased that the Mariner Drone took off smoothly (despite a gentle ten knot wind) from our makeshift launch area (the rear solar panel array) and were further amazed when we managed to land on the rear steps at the stern of the boat. A trial run and we had not even got the Mariner Drone wet despite some wind and a moving landing pad (patting ourselves on the back here)!

With a full battery we bravely strapped on the GoPro camera, set the timer to capture images evey 5 seconds and took off to see what would happen.

We had a successful flight, with a planned wet touchdown (we didn't want to crash the GoPro into the deck if it got wobbly on descent). Some neighbouring yachties zoomed over in their dinghy to return it to us, which was great. As a side benefit, it was a nice way to meet new people, as they ended up visiting us in the afternoon for drinks and snacks aboard Lucey Blue too. We still have a lot to learn, about drone flying, but our intitial flight and photos brought big smiles to all aboard...