Evening Session - 8/3/2022

Evening surf session with Marlon.  The wind died down to nothing - there was a giant cloud over Makakilo and it was choking out the thermals.  That made for glassy conditions.  There were waves coming in also.  The only thing that could have been better was the tide - it was a little low... but that was ok because I had the short Cedrus mast on.

Marlon brought his Seaside (but did make a comment as we drove in that he brought the wrong board.  He actually caught some good ones -

I caught plenty of waves and got multiple pump back outs and a few double dips.  It was a really fun session (the crowd was manageable).

I went in after an hour or so and broke out the drone.  I wanted to test out the settings I had changed and I figured I'd film Marlon.

Flying the drone was really fun in these conditions.  The settings were better - but I still didn't feel like controlling the drone was intuitive.  I'll change them again and keep adjusting until the drone goes where I need it to go as fast as I need it to get there.

We'll have light winds for the next several days.  I want to take an afternoon and shape the two blanks I have in the garage (new prone foil boards)

W:79/F:65/S:17

Evening Session - 7/29/2022

Almost a carbon copy of yesterday.  The differences being the waves were a hair bigger (and more frequent), tide was a little higher (we did go an hour earlier), and Marlon switched out the longboard for his Firewire Seaside.

Marlon flew his A2S first before going out - I did the opposite by foiling first, then coming in and flying the Mini 3.  While I was out, I had to pick and choose my waves wisely - there were some really good sized waves that were pitching lip.  I didn't get any double dips, but I did have a bunch of fun rides.

I'll download some pictures later and update this post - but I was able to recognize Roland in the water from 20' up (he was wearing his hat).

Marlon came in before I could find him (he had paddled further over towards the shack), and he started flying his drone again.

If I could do it over, I think I would have had fun using the green dually, or the Toots Asymmetric.  

W:76/F:64/S:17

Evening Session - 7/28/2022

Marlon and I hit WPB for an evening session.  Instead of hitting the water straight away, I flew the heli-cam for two batteries (code for droning).  I got some fun footage - checkout my Instagram for the videos (even though the quality took a hit - not that these screen shots from the videos are any better).

An old friend Ky was also at the beach -  

After I burned through the two batteries, I went ahead and got a few waves on the prone setup (exactly the same equipment as yesterday).  I got some fun rides, but it was mostly maneuvering around a bunch of people - pretty crowded for a Thursday.  Conditions were nice for surfing - mainly almost no wind.  There was also a rising swell starting to show.

Tomorrow may be a good day to surf - 

W:76/F:63/S:17

Drone Action with Marlon

Marlon has gotten to be really good with his drone.  The past few sessions I've been going out with him to begin developing my own drone skills.

The family behind Marlon had the same drone, but you could tell they were just getting started (they were just doing basics and staying at a higher altitude - Marlon was trying to get as low as possible to the grass and banking as he pulled up out of the low runs).

Marlon was doing searches in the shallow waters for wildlife - he saw tons of turtles and found an eagle ray.

Our parking spot from the previous days was better - this spot up high was cool, but really dusty.  I parked here thinking we would be out of visual range of the beach goers - but when we flew overhead, Marlon said he saw a few of them pointing back towards us.

Definitely not as much exercise as foiling and surfing - but almost as much fun!!!

Marlon's Version of Winging

I did take the repaired wing to the beach to get it back to Roland.  Marlon came along to fly his drone.  The truck has become a drone flight deck!

And these are some of the pictures Marlon took through the drone.

And this is my launch/landing point.

Marlon and the Leap Frog

Marlon got a DJI Mini 2 drone yesterday.  We have been talking about this and how it can integrate into a career field (photography on the side; geological surveys and conservation monitoring for day jobs) as well as hobbies (surfing pics and videos from a different perspective; sun rise and sun set photos and other purposes).  Costco had one for a great price.

These were from last night op checking.

And this morning we ran it through a series of flights to get better acquainted with this drone.  It was way better than the old Parrot 2.0 we got for Marlon a long time ago.  This is going to be fun!!!