Monthly Archives: February 2018

 

The last morning in paradise!  It’s been a great and more importantly a restful week!  Sherelene and I will head to the airport around 12:30 to return the rental car, slog through both Aruba’s and US  Customs and then board the plane around 4:00 for the return flight to Atlanta, and then on to Knoxville, arriving at 10:00 pm this evening.  It’s been a great week and a great celebration of our anniversary which is actually Valentine’s Day, my birthday and a continued celebration of Wes’s recovery from lymphoma.  After the timultuos year 2017 was, it is great to start 2018 like this!  Once again, we are so thankful for all of your prayers for Wes and our family and for God’s amazing response to those prayers!!!!!

 

The folks at the resort have been great, the Aruban people are really nice.  Weather has been almost perfect and Sherelene is good an tan and well rested, and I got a few more shots than I usually do on Caribbean trips!  I learned a lot about the drone and it was a great place to work on my flying skills in high winds!  Best of all, I got my required and desired number of naps!!!

 

Thanks for coming along with us, we’ll be home soon!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

Most mornings Sherelene and I have enjoyed a great breakfast delivered to our room and eaten on the patio, over looking the Caribbean Sea!  This morning Sherelene contacted the chef and had a Birthday Breakfast surprise for me, and she got me, I was really surprised!  The service at the Ritz Carlton is wonderful and they went all out to make this morning extra special!  What a sweetheart my bride she is!!

 

 

What a great way to start a day in which I have to face that I’m now 72!!!!  I never dreamed I would live this long, and I’m thrilled to be here, I pray, serving Him!  Let me thank my bride for her 48 years of being the greatest partner ever!  Next week on Valentine’s day we celebrate our 48th Anniversary!  I want to thank my wonderful family for all the love they have shared with me, and my 6 great, wonderful grandchildren, many of whom are not children anymore, and are now true friends!!!!

 

Next let me thank dear friends like Jack Graham, Jim Haverstock, Jim Begley, Carl Turner, Charles Stanley, and I better stop here before I leave someone very important out!!!!!  So many wonderful friends and you know who you are!!!!  To my brother Homer, who just retired and now we can actually have time to spend time together!!!!

 

On this, my 72nd year of this life,  I have so much to be thankful for, most of all, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with out whose Grace and Forgiveness this life would be meaningless!

 

I might make an image or two later today, but for now, I need to recover from that chocolate cake!!!!!!

 

Blessings

 

the pilgrim

 

Got up this morning to pouring rain and decided with howling winds and rain, “I think I’ll take the day off!”   Your probably tired of tropical pictures anyway!

 

Last night I learned a great lesson on drone flying when I made the very last shot, the parasailor from well above.  I flew the drone way out to where they were sailing and went high enough there was not chance I would interfere with their sails.  Well, the wind up there was even more strong than down where I was flying from.  After I got a shot I started to return to home.  The wind kept altering the course and I could not find the drone against the bright sky, I was looking into the sunset area of the sky.  My map, on the controller screen, showed the drone coming the correct direction, but at a snails pace.  While the drone which I could still  not find in the sky was returning and my battery was going down on the drone!!!

 

Calling on my experience from flying ultra lights, I thought I’ve got to get out of this wind, so I descended to about 100 feet and the map started show the drone moving much faster toward me.  It was not long until I could here that sweet whine of the props and by then I could see her on her way back, I got it landed safely and breathed a sigh of release.

 

I  think I deserve a pay off!!!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

Well, maybe one more! ….or two!

 

 

 

Great adventure this morning!  I went out to the California Lighthouse this morning to be greeted with a storm rolling in and out!  Storms build here, look menacing, pick up the already strong winds and then just blow off to sea!!  I quickly put the drone up to shoot the lighthouse, (below) and after one, not so great shot, the winds started too blow the drone off to the sea, I turned it back to me, and gave it full throttle and the little drone bucked slowly against the wind until it was past me and I then brought it down for a landing with it being blown back all the time, lucky for me my timing was perfect and it landed right next to the car!!  I learned a valuable lesson from my flying days, when the winds aloft (up high) are strong you can sometimes descend to less violent winds closer two the ground, that’s what I did to get the drone back.  By-the-way I keep posting about the “drone”,  I’m working on naming her, hope to have that soon!

 

 

 

After this close call with the drone, (learning experience), I shot the shot at the top of the page from down the road with the X-T2 and 55-300, the rocks were a great foreground, it was case where a shot from the ground worked better.

 

When I drove back down off the hill from where the lighthouse stands, the winds were better so I got the drone back up to show the rocky shore on that part of the island and the aqua water.

 

 

Finally, I saw some nice cactus on the way back and even though we’ve all made this shot a thousand times, I couldn’t resit doing it again, at least this time it was on a beautiful desert island near the equator!!!

 

 

Lessons from this morning:

 

1.  Don’t discount the affect of strong winds on a drone, you just might watch it go away forever!!!   2.  If you’re a Fuji shooter, always pack your 55-200, that lens is so nice and works for so many situations.  3.  If you are obsessing over the new 80mm Macro and your already own the 60mm Macro, you may be in good shape now, he new lens is fabulous, but large and expensive, still thinking about, which is good since you can’t seem to get one anyway!!!!!!

 

I turn 72 on Friday and bought myself a gift which will be waiting for me when I arrive home.  Can’t wait to try them and tell you all about them, they are the new DJI googles that allow you to see what  the drone sees while flying!!!  It will be back to my old view from the plane, and I can’t wait!  Here they are below, you look like an idiot wearing them, but they promise to help video and photography efforts immensely!!

 

 

More later!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

Parasailing from above!