34 degrees F Cloudy Wind 20mph NW
The drama never seems to end, does it?
It looks like we avoided a disaster.
With all of the extreme wind and bouncing of the floating platform from these storms, the very expensive camera was in danger of going for a swim in the lake. And trust me, I have been there (again) and it is not really time for anyone other than fish or loons to be swimming!
Early this morning, I thought the good folks at Broadband had found a way to zoom out.
But alas, such was not the case.
The camera was leaning over and thinking about going in the lake!
That had been my first thought when I saw the "new view" early this morning. And I was concerned. But when I looked with the binoculars, it did not look like the camera mount was leaning. So I thought they had found a way to zoom out further than before.
What I did not realize was that the camera was leaning directly at me so it did not look like it was leaning at all.
So I went on about other work oblivious to what was happening. Oblivious that is until until Mark, the President of Broadband, called me and asked if there was something wrong with the camera, that it looked like it was leaning.
When I looked at the picture online, it was obvious that it had changed even more.
So I quickly looked with the binoculars and now it was also obvious that the camera mount was leaning and in danger of going in the water.
At that point, things happened VERY fast.
I changed and got ready to go back in the lake. There was no time to even look to see if the loons were in the area (fortunately they were not). I grabbed some tools and some rope and tried to figure out what I was going to do when I actually got out there and could see what was happening. Hopefully it was something that I would be able to fix quickly and get out of there before the loons even saw me.
Oh man that water is cold!
Colder than it has been before. But I guess that is not surprising with the cold wind, cold rain and even some snow this morning.
I am sorry that I could not warn any of you of what was going to happen. There was no time for that. I am sure it was a shock to some of you to see the picture change suddenly and hear what must have been a terrible noise as I straightened the camera mount.
I tried tightening the bolts at the base of the camera mount but they were already pretty tight. It is just that a combination of the wind being so strong and the rocking of the raft were able to dislodge the camera mount.
I quickly tied a rope from one corner of the raft to the top of the camera mount. Once in a while you may catch a brief glimpse of it in the lower left hand corner of the picture.
But that camera mount should not move again. Famous last words. Among engineers we have a word "kluge" which means to fix something in whatever way you can. I have to say that the word applies here. But I think and hope that this "kluge" will work and hold. And I hope that we are done with any more drama and the wind fairly soon. They are saying by this afternoon the winds should start to die down. I hope they are right.
I headed back up to the house to dry off and warm up.
The loons had not seen me. Or had they?
Had they seen me and decided that they were comfortable with whatever I was doing.
I can almost hear them talking, "Yeah, that guy is down there monkeying around with our house again! But he never seems to do any damage so I am not sure I even want to swim all the way over in this wind to ask him what he is doing now."
No loons in sight, so I was happy that it had gone as fast and well as it had.
A few minutes after I had been in the house and gotten dried off and in dry, warm clothes, I looked down and there was one of the loons swimming some distance away from the nest. So I hadn't been able to fool them. They had seen me out there. But they apparently figured it was not a crisis for them ... even though it was a crisis for me.
Now you know a little of the behind the scenes of what went on and what the sudden movement and terrible noise was. I know that some of you enjoyed the increased view of the lake, as did I. Unfortunately we were seeing it for all the wrong reasons.
So our attention shifts back to the loons. Where it should be.
They have been up on the nest several times this morning. But no mating that I have seen.
We get closer and closer!
And the anticipation builds.
Comments or Questions? LoonCam(at)yahoo(dot)com