Parasailing

Ask and you shall receive. Some time ago I made a comment on my blog that I have long wanted to go parasailing.

Well, while I was in the islands my dear friend Margaret surprised me by granting my wish. It was a birthday present. Margaret and I have a weird and wonderful history. In high school we absolutely loathed each other. This picture proves it. I scanned it from our yearbook. We were in 11th grade when this was taken and just about everyone knew we were desperate enemies. The caption reads, "If only I could tell her what I really think of her." That's Margaret on the left, with me looking down my nose at her.

Now through the wonderful experience of aging and no longer having to deal with all that teen-aged angst, we the bestest of friends. Here we are on July 3rd on the boat that took me parasailing.

Here's one of the young hunks getting the parachute ready.

Here he is, buckling me into my harness. (He had only moved to the islands like 4 months before. A real newbie.)

I went up with a young tourist. I'd say she was 17 or so. Her father and brother went up before us, so we had the opportunity to see how it worked. I'm on the left here. We are getting ready to be lifted off the stern.

Whooosh! And here we are getting lifted off. Can you see the smiles.

We sored up to about 400 feet. We had the expansive view eastward of Drake's Passage, named after the famous buccaneer Sir Francis Drake, who sailed through it. We could see the north side of St. John all the way to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Northward were all the cays and islands; Lovango, Congo, Mingo, Grass, Thatch, Jost Van Dyke, Big and Little Tobago and King's Rock. Westward was St. Thomas and southward the great open expanse of the Caribbean sea. I got to give my young companion flier a brief history of the islands. How Columbus sailed right through these waters on his second voyage in 1493 and named them after St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins (it must have looked to him like there were 11,000 islands, particularly after being without sight of land for so long.) And because it was July 3rd I told her it was Emancipation Day; the day the slaves won their freedom from Denmark in 1848.

It was all together awesome...breathtaking and except for the wind in our ears, surprisingly quiet. When they reeled us in (we were up there about 15 minutes) we were dipped in the water. It was wonderful!

It is/was as close to flying as I will ever get. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Thanks Margaret. Next year we should do it again, together.