tropicalbats.com
  • Home
  • Bats
  • Places of note
    • Suriname
    • Costa Rica
    • Norway
    • The UK >
      • London
    • The United States
  • critter essays
  • Birds
    • Suriname birds
  • tropicalbats blog
  • Coins: Errors, Varieties and Photography

Drone fail #5 Our Final Chance

5/29/2015

0 Comments

 
Just to remind any new viewers, this story is told from the original Drone Fail posting, and this is the one that will end such.  Guy van Rentergem leaves tomorrow for San Jose and without him we can not recover the drone.  Did we overcome all odds in the jungle to pick a bit of expensive equipment from an impossible scenario?  Or end up leaving it there as an expensive tree ornament.

Scroll down a lot if you haven't been following this and read this last.  If you have been following along, then here is the last post on such.

This morning I got up at six in the morning to see if Don and Guy needed my help.  They politely said I could get more sleep.  Partly because I had to make lunch for the students and us and couldn't do that while on a mountainside.  Their mission was, now that Guy could climb no higher, to cut the branch with the drone on it and hope it would fall enough to recover the drone.

The morning mission successfully cut that branch, but it refused not just to fall, but to be moved in any manner including an angled rope with a 2 to 1 ratio tied to it.  Fail.

I had suggested that since the drone was stuck between the tree Guy climbed, and a slightly smaller tree, that I just cut down that smaller tree with my machete.  The drone should come down as the tree comes down and drags everything with it.

So after all other option had been tried, this afternoon I went up to cut down the smaller tree.  Another Ceiba, with a diameter of about 14 inches.  We all knew that it wouldn't just fall down, as the canopy was a tangle of vines, but little did we know that we would have to cut down the same tree five times.
Picture
The stump from my original efforts, with a bit of the top of the tree in the background
Guy got a shot of me taking down the tree for the fourth time, which was much easier as the trunk was smaller, but way more dangerous as falling spiny trees on a killer steep slope are not really how one wishes to spend an afternoon.
Picture
Keith Christenson making the back cut on the tree that had to come down
And, after felling the tree five times (thank you Don for jumping in to spell me a bit on the machete), we found that...

The drone was still in the original tree.  But, much easier to recover now that it had a way down with the big gap we created by dropping the nearby slightly smaller tree.

Which means, Guy had to once again climb the tree, and now try to move it off the canopy and into the gap, using a bamboo pole that he raised up after climbing to the top of the tree.

Poking, prodding, vines spines, energy levels.  This was hard stuff.  But then he...
Picture
Guy manages to get the drone off the canopy and into the gap created by the downed tree
but the parachute cords are tangled in the vines.  He used the bamboo pole to work it out
Picture
About this time Guy shouts, "Just one more vine."
Picture
Down it comes, but will it go into a glide into the next tree?
Picture
Looks like it will go into glide, but no...
Picture
It crash lands on it's right wing on the ground! A spare wing is no big deal compared to a drone in a tree.
So after much effort to remove a drone from an almost impossible situation, we succeeded in doing just that.  There is a website:
http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/7-bad-ass-trees-youll-probably-never-climb.html

that lists 7 of the worlds most difficult trees to climb.  Our tree, the Silk Floss Tree (Ceiba speciosa) is the first they list (although they are not ranked).

Not only did Guy climb the tree, many times, he recovered the drone.  What an adventure.  And I don't plan on using my machete to cut down any more trees soon.  We are all tired, and thankful for the permission we were given to access the property and do what was needed to get the drone back.

Tonight we had dinner in Domincal for celebration,  Awesome food.  Guy heads out tomorrow, but I will still be here for the weekend to work with the students.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    Author

    Keith Christenson - Wildlife Biologist

    Categories

    All
    Akershus Fortress
    Angry Baby
    Aurlandsfjord
    Bat Coins
    Bats
    Bird
    Birds
    Blast From The Past
    Borneo
    Butterfly
    Camouflage
    Caterpillar
    Caving
    Comets
    Costa Rica
    Crazy Video Links
    Crazy Video Links
    Cricket
    Cuba
    Denmark
    Dominican Republic
    Festivals
    Finse
    Fish
    Flower
    Flowers
    Folk Museum
    Freia Chocolates
    Frog
    Frogner Park
    Geese
    Goose
    Grønland
    Harvestman
    Hawaii
    Hedgehog
    Holiday Cards
    Huk
    Ice
    Insect
    Ireland
    Isopods
    Jamaica
    Kolsastoppen
    London
    Mammals
    Mexico
    Mourning Cloak
    Mushrooms
    Naeroyfjorden
    National Day
    Norway
    Ohio
    Oslo
    Oslo Opera House
    Oslo Summer Park
    Panama
    Patterns
    Pennsylvania
    People
    Pond
    Puerto Rico
    Roof Animals
    Scotland
    Sognsvann
    Spiders
    Spring
    Suriname
    United States
    United States
    Venezuela
    Virginia
    Washington Dc Area
    Washington Dc Area
    West Virginia
    Woodpecker
    World's End
    Zambia

    Author

    Keith Christenson
    Wildlife Biologist


    RSS Feed

    Archives

    September 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    November 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    December 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    June 2010

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo from Evil_Prince