While setting up to film a volunteer beach cleanup for a local marine education center, one of the organizers suggested I check out the inlet dredging that was going on across the channel if I had a few minutes. So, during a break in the beach action, I took a short hop over to the dredging for a quick look. The long-arm bucket operator obviously spotted me and decided to take aim and try to swat me out of the air. Despite me not doing anything illegal or interfering with their work in any way (just a taxpayer watching my tax dollars at work) the operator raised his bucket to my approximate altitude and swiped across in front of me. Naturally, my small drone against the blue sky made it impossible for him to judge how far away I actually was from him -- and having worked around these long-arms before on a project site, I knew his reach. Then he reached out as far as he could directly in front of me and tapped the distance on the water as a reference, appearing to dare me to get any closer. Sorry, bud, but I'm too smart for that game. I also had no interested in bothering someone who obviously didn't want me around. So I just headed back to the beach cleanup. Had to laugh. Below was the encounter on video.
Last edited:
