Cathy McKenzie took a drive last week and stopped at Great Sand Bay when she saw the ice floes bordering the shoreline there. You can see some good size chunks of ice floating in her first photo and what even looks like some rocks suspended in the water, which I’m guessing are topping off a submerged ice floe. In the second photo, Cathy looks quite daring to be out there standing on an ice floe, but don’t panic. She had good, tall water boots on and the water was shallow enough for her to walk out to that ice chunk and step aboard for the photo op. Cool photo, (pun intended).

We’re checking out some icebergs in and around Presque Isle Park in Marquette from a year ago this time, in a video published by Maxed Out Productions. It shows quite a bit of ice around there and it was reported to be 45° the day it was shot.

Great video showing a totally different perspective of a place i've spent a lot of time exploring. Sure miss it!

Nice video and pix...is Cathy part penguin?

The video makes me wonder.... what's the flying range of a drone before it's too far and it just drops into the drink??

About 4.3 miles or until you lose video, and it should keep flying and allow you to bring it back, is what I found out! :=)) I did not know...

I wonder what happens when the drone is way out there and it runs out of battery power?

Bob, I think it takes a bath! :=))

OK, this might be dumb, but do you think the distance has anything to do with the curve of the Earth? 4.3 miles is an odd number........

jbuck, Interesting question, with a range of only 4.3 miles, I wouldn't think it would have an effect, but I don't know, I'm just a salesman... lol. Perhaps FR Nash or the Capt. would know???

Going back to work a week from today on May 1st, and it's about time, I'm getting pretty bored. The Foot and leg are all healed up, so it's time to get the steelbelts hummin on the asphalt again!

UC, found this page: http://www.davidsenesac.com/Information/line_of_sight.html. Basically it says the Earth curves 8 inches per mile, so that doesn't seem like that would be it.

the full text says:
The Earth has a radius of approximately 3965 miles. Using the Pythagorean theorem, that calculates to an average curvature of 7.98 inches per mile or approximately 8 inches per mile (squared). The distance to the horizon in miles from height of an observer is approximately equal to 1.23 times the square root of the height in feet. For example 1.23 times the square root of 8 divided by 12 equals 1 mile. Inversely given the horizon distance in miles, the height in feet required to be visible equals the distance in miles squared divided by 1.513. The second example above concerning the Moon rising over a distant range also requires some topographic map calculations using the tan trigonometric function. Thus if a peak rises up 1844 feet at a distance of 10.0 miles or 52,800 feet, it will form an angle of 2 degrees with a theoretical flat horizon. The tan is 1844/52800=0.0349 or 2 degrees. However due to the Earth's curvature, it would appear as though it was only 1778 feet tall with the lowest 66 feet below the horizon.

Holy Guacamole jbuck that's deep!! Now I'm going to be calculating all night long in my sleep, but I think I got all that down pat!! lol

Can you give me a hand with all my sales reports?? Have a good night!! :=))

You've got me pegged UC. I ended up doing the reports in about every department i was in. You know: "let the accountant do it!"

Hey, good to see you're healing up well and close to getting back out there.

Aye, UC...it's all totally mental!
I remember a drone video that took off from the Keweenaw Mountain lodge an flew all the way to the top of Brockway.

I would think it has more to do with how powerful the radio signal is and how far the radio signal travels as opposed to the curvature of the earth.