Six Seconds of Paradise

When we were in Costa Rica, in January, I didn't get a lot of time to play with my drone.

I didn't get much of an opportunity to use it on our first few days because we were in a rainforest and, well, it was raining. A lot. I also was reluctant to use it during the times that the rain held off because there were so many birds in the jungle and I didn't want to upset them.

On the days that we were at the beach, I felt that the wind might have been a bit strong for my little Neo 2. It can handle stronger wind than its predecessor, but because we were on the ocean, I didn't want to take the risk that the drone would be blown out into the bay that surrounded Playa Potrero.

Though, on the first evening, as we walked along that beach at sunset, the wind was calm enough to let me use the autonomous modes, which you can see in the related YouTube video. But again, there were birds to deal with and I didn't want to upset them and make the drone a target for attacks by some of the larger waterfowl.

It wasn't until one of the last mornings of our trip, where we explored a quiet beach, about a half-hour's drive and walk from Potrero. Shortly after sunrise, we had Playa Conchal almost entirely to ourselves at one end.

The wind was calm, I didn't see as many birds around, and so I took the drone up.

I flew it for about 10 minutes, flying along the surf, climbing over the trees, and heading out over the water. I couldn't get over the crystal-clear water from this height.

When I returned to our condo, I uploaded the videos from the drone, as is my practice. I try to pull all footage from the drone before I fly it again, just in case I end up losing the thing: at least I won't loose all of the video, too.

There was a lot of good footage to use but I thought I would share some of it on social media, so as we were enjoying coffee on our patio, I took a short clip and uploaded it to Bluesky. It was 13 seconds long.

Now, before I delete this short clip from my phone, I thought I would upload it one more time. I had to shorten it to six seconds to be able to upload it into this post, but you still get the essence of that beach.

Seeing the aerial of Playa Conchal makes me want to go back to Costa Rica sooner. But we'll have to wait a bit longer.

Happy Friday!