Sunday 16 March 2014

71. Up In The Clouds (now also physically)

12th March 2014, Now Larimar, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Hell's Bells is afraid of heights. I have an abnormally high number of nights spent in hospitals due to fairly serious accidents. So naturally, we decided that going parasailing together was a good idea.

I was calm on the little boat going to the bigger boat. Still calm when they strapped me into the harness and security gear. Still calm when they attached me to the parachute. To be fair, I only freaked out as we were taking off.

Turns out, I scream like a girl.

First few minutes up in the air were terrifying. Going through everything that could go wrong is a pretty bad idea when already flying along behind a speed boat. For those who wants to know, these are the things that could potentially happen when parasailing:
  • The parachute coming loose and dropping you in the Caribbean Sea where you are eaten alive by giant sharks.
  • The parachute coming loose and flying off with you to Haiti where you crash in the jungle and are eaten alive by man eating monkeys.
  • You coming loose from the parachute and falling down in the sea, landing on the wind surfing board below you.
  • The rope getting tangled in another parasailing rope and you dying squashed against another, probably sweaty,  tourist also feeling a bit adventurous that day.
Luckily non of that happened. Now that is not because it couldn't happen, it just didn't happen this particular time. I'm convinced all four of the above scenarios are all very common.

So, once we got over the first minutes of fearing death, it was actually quite peaceful up there, dangling our feet, waving to the fishing boats and admiring the views.

Unfortunately, they had to take us down eventually. That was less enjoyable. Had it been up to me, I still would have been floating about up there. Instead, I had to endure the excruciating fear of crashing back down again, being dipped in the ocean water like a sea bass and dragged up onto the boat again.

I have now taken parachuting off the list.

And off we go!

Up in the air, where no one can hear your screams.


Putting on a brave face

And dip time!




No comments:

Post a Comment