This was our last full day of our OWGRV adventure.  Tomorrow we take Khan and Polo to our storage location near the Salt Lake City airport, and spend the night in an airport hotel.  On Wednesday we all fly home – Tom and Scott fly early; Steve’s flight is around noon.

Last night we reserved a boat for an all-day ride on the Flaming Gorge.  We reserved a 19 foot Chaparral at nearby Lucerne Marina – and though the process of getting under way was a bit longer than you would have thought, we were on the river by 9AM.

At a scenic bend of the Red Canyon, Scott got out his Mavic 2S drone, launched it, and took several cool pictures.  Scott has flown several generations of DJI drones for several years, and never lost one.  Until today.

Turns out a common tactic – which Scott used previously in Death Valley – of taking several pictures near the ground then flying high for an overview was ill-advised without reasonable precautions that Scott did not follow in a canyon.  Somehow on the way back to the boat, Scott managed to get the picturesque rock walls between his hand controller and the drone, cutting off communication with the drone.  Normally, the drone would simply go to its pre-programmed RTH (return to home) height, then fly to the home point and land autonomously.

There is a slight chance that the drone successfully did this, but we launched from the boat and moved it, so it would have gone straight into the river.  Since we never heard or saw the drone during the critical “out of communication” period, this seems less likely than it just crashing into a rock wall.

At any rate, Scott was a bit depressed at losing his first drone, but they are replaceable and, of course, no one was hurt.

We beached the boat and had a nice lunch (don’t tell the marina – this is strictly forbidden,) proceeded to Flaming Gorge Dam, then stopped to top of our tank at the other marina on the lake, Checked out a nice boat-in-only campground that appeared to be closed, then returned to the marina.

After we returned, Steve and Tom proceeded to go to a local rock cut on the road where several interesting rocks were to be collected.  Scott did email and laundry.

After our dinner of mainly leftovers we cannot bring home or store, we proceed to our last overnight in Khan.