Parasail Adventures in the Bahamas

This week for Travel Tuesday I am going to take you on an adventure. One that if you don't have a fear of heights, I would highly recommend you try yourself one day.

While I went Parasailing in the Bahamas, you can actually do this at many coastal destinations, even some lakes have parasailing.

Although it is relatively safe, there is some risk. I remembered seeing a news report a while back, that parasailing companies in the U.S. have to follow strict regulations, while others around the world do not follow those same safety guidelines.  So when choosing where and when to do it, that is something to keep in mind.

Pretty much anyone can do it, there is no skill involved. If you can wear a harness and follow simple instructions about where you should or shouldn't put your hands while taking off and landing, then you can go.

It's a lot of fun, it's not one of those adrenaline rush thrills, as it's a bit tamer on the adventure scale. But it is still fun, and worth trying at least once. My friend that came with me, she was afraid of heights, but she did it anyway and had a lot of fun too.

FUN STORY

I mentioned above it is relatively safe.  Which it is, but I want to tell you my funny almost not so safe story about this particular trip.

I had paid to go once, but the guy in charge had a little crush on me. So when I landed he unhooked my friend and told me I got to go again.  Which I was totally excited about! (Hey, it pays to be a single girl sometimes:) ha ha.)

This other gal, a total stranger was hooked up next to me and up we went. My friend stayed back and took a few pictures.

We were to be the last parasail on that boat trip out, and the driver and guides per my friend were talking to her and everyone there having fun letting us stay up a bit longer. When all of a sudden out of nowhere what they call a smaller rouge wave came up and the boat driver didn't see it in time.

He had to make a quick hard left and turned the boat almost around to miss the wave, so the boat wouldn't get flipped.  Now if you have parasailed before or are a water skier, or at least understand the part about the boat needing to have the rope tight to do the pulling work and keep ya up part. Then you can probably visualize what happened next.

Yup, we were plummeting and despite being hooked to a parachute of sorts, myself and the gal next to me were coming down fast.  

I quickly realized something was happening (because obviously we didn't feel or see the wave.) But a glance below seeing that the guides were working frantically to reel in the rope as fast as absolutely possible. That and the fact that it was perfectly obvious the boat turned directions quickly.

You know how you always wonder how you will react during crazy times, I mean you hope you will be calm, but you never know. Well luckily I am a calm reactor to things, the gal next to me, not so much.

I turned to her remember telling her to calm down, and relax because there was a good chance if they couldn't get the line in below we were going to hit the water pretty hard. I told her we might be under second or two but we will be okay, but since we were hooked together if the chute landed on us, we would have to swim together to get out from under it. I do remember telling her many times, relax and enjoy the thrill she might actually have an adventure story to go home with.

I vaguely remember her throwing up, LOL

Well luckily, they got the rope tight just in time. In fact the picture you see below where we were close to the water is us. We didn't hit, but were were about 4 feet from the water before the boat and rope caught up and was tight again. 

My friend on the boat took this picture for me, so I would have a picture to highlight my almost parasailing accident, LOL  She said it was pretty exciting watching it all happen.

If you're wondering, the guy on the boat laughing, was laughing because he thought me and the other gal were going under. Glad to know of their concern, LOL

Anyhow, that is my fun parasail story. Don't let it discourage you from going, stuff like that happening is pretty rare. Rare things seem to always happen to me, I swear I am like prone to them, if you've read my blog over the past few years, you've probably picked up on that odd fact too.  LOL

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(Sorry about the picture quality, these were taken with one of those waterproof Kodak cameras.)

Have you been parasailing before?

Is this something you want to try sometime?