My next project

PolarityMan

I applaud your ambition. I myself have a similar project on the go, I'm building a giant net to try and pull down a plane that's been stuck in the sky above my house for the last 4 years. It drifts a bit with the wind but the currents pull it right past my back garden at pretty much the same time every day. 

I looked on ebay and the nearest thing was well out of my budget, and besides looks a lot smaller than the abandoned one I've spotted:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aviation-Aircraft-Plane-Aeroplane-for-sale-4-seater-Piper-Warrior-161-1985-/200951270952?pt=UK_ToysGames_RadioControlled_JN&hash=item2ec9a10e28

Anyone know anything about aviation salvage law?

chillidoggy

Apologies Emp but I'm quite enthused by this because its kind of created a new thing: project by proxy! See, now if you had the webcam sorted, we could instruct you where to dig, and how deep, whilst sat in the comfort of our armchairs supping a cold beer. Good luck for this afternoon's excavation!

Emp_Fab

-whoaaa there boy... ah said a-whoaaa !  Who said anything about excavation ?  Today is a reconnai.. recconi...  just having a stroll and a quick shufti.  You can't rush these things you know.

My plan for today is to put on the wellies and take Mrs Fab's camera.  Leave the dog at home as he may disappear down a crack in the mud.  Then venture out, down the sea wall steps.....  This is one small step for a twat, one giant leap for forumkind....  then I will take the first step down onto the estuary surface.  Once I've established I haven't immediately sunk up to my neck, I will commence the mud-walk.

When, after a marathon trek of, perhaps a whole minute, I reach the stricken vessel, I will check for any lifesigns with my 'Tricorder App' that I bought for my phone for £250 off ebay.  I hope it works.  If there are no dangerous aliens hiding inside the hull, I will then document the ship in photographs and give it a swift kick to see if it disintegrates.  I will then move onto stage two of the mud-walk - going for a stroll.  I will take several photographs of things that look remotely worth photographing (don't get too excited - it's mostly mud out there), and post the results here on my return.

Mr LittleGreenMan can be assured that his fears that I may be consumed by the ocean as per the Morcambe Bay Chinese Cockle disaster of 2004, are without merit.  I intend to venture out at low water, which should give me a launch window of roughly three hours before the water comes to meet me.  Given that there is barely enough out there to keep me interested for more than three minutes, this should not be a problem.  Unless, of course, I end up sinking in quicksand and become trapped as the tide rushes towards me, threatening me with imminent death.  In this scenario, I'll post a message here asking if any of you have a rope.

T minus 5 hours and counting.....

Emp_Fab

mike_l

I'll have a stroll to the river later and get one of the life buoys thingys they have there. I reckon with a bit of a run up I can launch it to the estuary. Although it may fall a bit short.......

chillidoggy

Emp, you're so Moneysupermarket, you don't even know it!

 

 

It's so exciting!

snakemanStoo

I'm off down to Llangollen this afternoon, so if you get into difficulty just yell.

Wales isn't that big, is it?

Emp_Fab

...and we've just heard that Cardiff has given the go-ahead for the mud-walk far earlier than expected....   and any minute now we should see Mudstronaut Emp descending down the sea wall steps to set foot upon the estuary surface....

Spider

Are we to hear from the big man again? If it's on the BBC news who's going to post the link?

chillidoggy

One small step for a man, one giant leap for a..............................well, you fill in the blank.

 

Courageous explorer at the forefront of discovery?

siremoon

Is Emp back yet?  The suspense is killing me. 

chillidoggy

I know, it's agonising, isn't it?

holnrew

I hope it's not like the mudflats at Burnham on Sea

mike_l

Spider said:

Are we to hear from the big man again? If it's on the BBC news who's going to post the link?

I'll take the responsibility for posting some, but can't (and won't) do them all........

chillidoggy

One can but hope he's got enough dosh left over for us to have a piss-up at the wake.

mike_l

Apparently he's got a half decent toaster too, 2 birds 1 stone and all that Chilli...

 

chillidoggy

Splendid!

Emp_Fab

Rejoice !! (or not) - I have returned from the Frau Megan Highlands !!

The journey was fraught with danger - at one point one welly got stuck in the mud and I fell over - very neary over-arming Mrs Fab's Canon EOS into the river.  The consequences of that would have been too horrible to contemplate.

I have completed a journey of 1.6 MILES !  I ventured out across the surface of the estuary some 0.8 Miles out.....  I was, in fact, a mere couple of hundred metres from the other side, but bottled it as by that stage I'd reached the main river (which I could have walked across), but noticed that it was flowing rapidly inwards.  Turning to look how far from home I was, and it was a mere speck in the distance, it crossed my mind that I didn't really want to be standing on a sandbank in the middle of an estuary as the tide was coming in, so I turned around and headed back - despite it being only twenty minutes past low tide !

Anyway...  the full report, with annotated pictures will follow after dinner...  I'm going out to celebrate my epic trek across the alien surface with a slap-up dinner.

Oh... and the boat....  fuck that for a game of soldiers....  it's in very soft mud and I was sinking about a foot into it as I got within a few feet of it.  Trying to dig in that shit would a) take forever - because even standing in it is nigh on impossible, and b) kill me.

mike_l

mike_l said:

Emp_Fab said:

I will venture out and examine the boat this weekend.  I will then decide whether this project is GO or 'err, ahh bollocks to that'.

. )

£5 says it's the "err, ahh bollocks to that"..........

If it's the former I shall buy Emp a pint......

ICM £5. That is all. ;-)

chillidoggy

It didn't look like 0.8 of a mile from your photo, it looked more like 0.8 of a metre.