I flew in the air this time, on the fabulous wings of a parasail. Actually, I was quite surprised. The cost was quite reasonable, about forty bucks.
If you want to see any of the pictures in more detail, just click on the thumbnails. My special thanks to Liza, who gave me a marvelous waterproof camera!
My first shot as we rose above the waves. The pilot of the boat was an affable bald guy who wore sunglasses. I didn't get a picture of him, but I will next time. He was a hoot.
We sat on the back of the boat in our harness and the parachute just yanked us up into the air. It took me a few seconds to regain my brain and take this picture.
Here's your wet-clue. After they fly you around for a while, they slow the boat and you dip toward the water. As soon as they see the splash, they goose the boat and you leap back up into the air. If you don't want to get wet, stick your feet out. They'll bring you up at the sight of the splash, but your butt doesn't get wet. In case you were parasailing in a business suit.
Oh, another cool thing that happens is, after you get dunked and you're back in the air, the pilot snaps the cord to knock the water from it. It is very cool to be up there and see the cord displacement rushing toward you. Very ominous. Then it hits and it's as if your entire frame of reference has jumped a foot to one side, then back again. Extremely weird!
The next picture I took was, obviously, much higher. The thing that surprised me most about being at this height was the lack of noise. Geez, it was quiet up there. Only the flapping of the 'chute disturbed an otherwise silent journey. I took some more pictures, but this one best suggested my height
I tried looking for sea life while I was up there, but I realized I would only be able to see big things, such as whales, or high-contrast critters, such as dolphins. I was able to see reef stuff, where the sandy bottom was broken by reef, and that was pretty cool.
One of the last things I wanted to do was get a picture of the condos in which we stayed. I couldn't find the dang things, but I thought these might have been them, so I took the picture. As it turned out, our condo was much closer to the launching docks, so we were all in the boat before we went near them. Oh well, pretend that we stayed in this really nice white condo. No ants here!
As I was being winched back to the boat, I saw some dolphins running alongside it. That was very nice and a damn pleasant way to end a trip into the air.
