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...

Lady Musgrave - Turtle season returns early...

Wow turtle season has sure started early out here - well at least they seem to be everywhere at the moment.

We have been surrounded by the most amazing turtles almost every time we have been snorkelling. Big old Loggerhead turtles that gently glide through the water and little Green trutles that zip around in the clear blue lagoon.

There are some special spots on the reef where the turtles seem to gather in larger numbers. We really liked the turtle cleaning station in the shallow water on the south side of the island and the pool (or as Ryan has described it the 'mini mystery lagoon that has everything!') in the north wall of the outer barrier reef that only comes out at extreme low tide. Both are special places where the kids have spent hours swimming totally entralled by the spectacle around them.

Paradise? Well close enough for us at the moment...

Lady Musgrave - Riding out strong southerly winds...

Ryan and I spent the next few days snorkelling at low tide despite the arrival of stong southerly winds.

There were no more dinghy trips to the island...unless you really wanted to get wet so Sam and Eric (with some help from Emily) baked up a storm - fresh bread, chocolate brownie and other goodies. Emily also spent a far bit of time at the stern desperately trying to catch a fish for our dinner.

We used our Spectra watermaker to top up our fresh water tanks and most days made enough water to keep our tanks full. We can only make about twenty litres per hour, but we don't use much water aboard and we still had heaps of power (despite the clouds reducing the efficienty of our solar array) to run the watermaker for several hours a day if required. The watermaker only draws about 9 amps at 12 volts, but you still need to be careful when you don't have a wind generator to produce power on cloudy days.

Most of the other boats left the lagoon before the wind pickup and during the worst of the conditions two fishing boats anchored on the leeward side of the reef. Sam was despertate for fish and suggested that we take the dinghy out to ask if they had any free. But given the conditons we decided that the idea was not a viable option - there would be no return if anything happened to the dinghy or outboard motor.

Our anchor held fast in the windy conditions and even at high tide we were generally comfortable in the 30-35 knot conditions. We did break one of the anchor bridles as the surf rolled over the reef at high tide, but the rope had been fraid a little anyway so it was bound to fail sooner or later.

All agreed that at least the sunsets were still great!

Lady Musgrave - Our Return...

We all went exploring as soon as we arrived at Lady Musgrave. Sam and Eric jumped into our new (secondhand) sea kayak while the rest of us simply hit the water with fins and masks.

We spent ages moving slowly around the lagoon looking at the reef and local wildlife (or as Eric said "looking for cool things"). The water was very clear and relatively warm so there was no real rush.

Emily and Ryan found a cool white Nudibranch with orange dots, a crown of thorns starfish and even a stonefish.

Eric had fun watching all the excitement though his looking glass and even saw some amazing patterns and shapes all on his own.

At the end of the day we went ashore so Eric could stretch his legs and so we could see if the last cyclone had caused any damage to the native vegetation.

We returned to the dinghy on sunset and headed home for dinner, showers and a few bedtime stories about treasure islands and giant red-eyed crabs...