The Drone Strike
13 October 2015 | Deltaville, VA
I think that I have finally reached an understanding of the future of this blog. I have been wrestling with competing feelings of guilt (for not posting) and a real lack of interest in the process of creating and composing. The single largest reason for this ambivalence is that I have lost interest in doing a “travelogue”. I have found that such writing is marginally interesting while I am exploring new waters but simply a “to do list” chore otherwise. Perhaps some readers would find it engaging – perhaps not. In any case, it is not at all engaging to me to find a new way to write about even the favorite places that I tend to return to often.
I have always enjoyed most writing about and sharing the interesting stories that my cruising life has gifted me. There are a lot of jokes about the core nature of cruising. “Cruising is defined as working on your boat in exotic places!” is ubiquitous and all too true. But my mantra has become: “We cruise to have experiences that create stories worth telling. We have cocktail hour to have the opportunity to tell them.”
While I am a big proponent of cocktail hour (for the stories as well as the rum!), it is not an efficient way to share stories with a diverse and geographically dispersed family of friends. Facebook could be used for that purpose but tends to be best used by those with frequent if not continuous internet connections – which would not include me. And, it is best used for quick comments as opposed to longer stories.
So this blog will continue, but with changed form and content. The title of each post will no longer be just a geographical reference but will be a title reflecting the subject. I will write the stories that I live and experience, those of other cruisers that I meet and find particularly unique and interesting and, at times, there may be some posts about what I am thinking (not too heavy there – and no politics, I promise), reading, eating, cooking or boat improvement projects that I am working on. In other words, I will write and post what is on my mind at the time. A particularly pleasant or, for that matter, challenging sailing experience may also make the cut as well.
What I won’t feel the need to do is to write a chronological listing and discussion of where I’ve been and where I am going next.
However, the position reports that I have done through Winlink for some time will continue. My most current position can always be viewed by clicking on the link in the sidebar of this blog titled “Where in the world is Kelly Rae?”
The Drone Strike
I arrived at the entrance to Jackson Creek, one of the harbors in Deltaville, Va Sunday afternoon after an amazing mostly-spinnaker sail from Cornfield Harbor at the mouth of the Potomac.
After winding through the circuitous entry channel and entering the anchorage, I was in my normal, very focused “landfall” mode. There were 4 boats anchored, a Chesapeake style fishing boat with a group of people onboard floating about and a gaggle of kids playing on kayaks and stand-up paddleboards. At slow speed and watching the kids closely, I scanned the harbor looking for a likely place to drop KR’s CQR anchor. I have anchored in Jackson Creek often in the past and it is generally easy. There is plenty of room and the holding and protection are uniformly excellent. Still - anchoring deserves focus.
So here I was, motoring quietly past Deltaville Marina’s docks, minding my own business, when there is a loud clank and a more extended, loud clatter which ended with an unidentifiable “something” splashing in the water off KR’s starboard beam. It sunk quickly but not before I had just enough of a look to see that it really didn’t resemble anything that I am used to seeing on KR’s mast. Was it a bird????
I ducked out from under the bimini and took inventory of the masthead instruments and antennas that should be – and still were – there.
The kids on the SUP’s yelled over to me “You’ve been hit by a (not understood word)”.
“What?”
“You’ve been hit by a DRONE!”
“NO SHIT!” F__K! (I hope that the kids didn’t hear that last bit.)
A quick look at the wind instrument proved that that was still working. There was no way to test the lights until dark.
Things slowly started to sort out. The people on the fishing boat were part of a crew doing some aerial videotaping of the harbor for a Virginia tourism board. The drone operator, however, had been flying it from the land and had not had a line-of-sight to the drone. He knew where the anchored boats were but didn’t know that KR had entered the picture and, therefore, fumbled into a mid-harbor collision.
My biggest question, of course, was “Where did the drone hit the boat?” The people on the fishing boat were amazingly unhelpful, claiming that they had not seen it hit. And, they were diligently and very successfully avoiding making any eye contact with me.
I found that to be infuriating but moved KR to an open part of the anchorage, dropped the hook and set it, jumped in Katerik and rowed hard back to the fishing boat. The folks on the boat continued to try to avoid connecting in any way – obviously trying desperately to avoid any admissions of responsibility. Finally, since it was clear that I wasn’t letting go of their gunnel and shoving off without contact information, I was provided with a name, company name and cell phone number and was told that the marina people could connect me to them if I found that damage had been done to the boat.
Thankfully, two of the cruising boats anchored nearby had seen the collision and agreed that it had hit the rigging just above the starboard spreader – fortuitous, as there is almost nothing that a light-weight drone could damage in that area. The noises that I had heard and the splash location of the wreckage reinforce the theory.
So, other than a slight possibility of a chip in the spreader paint, KR escaped undamaged. The drone, on the other hand, still rests in the shallow but muddy waters of Jackson Creek.
Final Score: Kelly Rae - 1 Drone – 0
Unfortunately for what is a really cool technology and for those practitioners who are careful and responsible, experiences like this will result in rules and regulations on drone use – made necessary only by the actions of those who are careless and irresponsible - people like the ones that flew their drone into Kelly Rae.
Best to all.