Parasailing Off a Perfectly Good Mountain

One of Princess number 3's friends has a father who is an instructor for parasailing. When he heard that we had an exchange student, he offered to take her on a tandem flight. 

Of course, that isn't in the "exchange student handbook" so in a way, we were lucky to be able to have her do that. 

ATV's, Seadoo, and motorcycles are all on the "Do not do" list as well as guns. So, thanks to that, after she got a written "ok" from her father, she was off and running literally. 

There is a small fee to "train" and when Princess number three had her turn, the flight was all of 5 minutes or less. So, in my head, I was expecting more of a "hill" for take off.
 
I guess since the weather was in good form and "Perfect" for take off, Princess number 6 got the ride of her life. 

Off they ran, after about two steps, she was lifted off and there they went..... 
 
My daughters friend has helped with many of these tandem take offs and said she had never seen such an easy take off. 

Sometimes, they have to back up and run again depending on the sail getting lift.  


Had I known she was going to go off a mountain, I probably wouldn't have been so "OK" with the idea. I figured the hill my daughter went off wouldn't have killed someone if they fell even but I was a bit spooked when they dropped really fast after taking off. 


His daughter assured me that everything was ok and that it was normal to have that much of a drop. I think I was expecting it would lift some with the breeze updraft of the mountain. It actually dropped more like a parachute would at the beginning. 



After a few seconds they were out of our sight so we had to head from the take off zone to the top where I was able to snap these pictures.  

Her flight was about 20 minutes and she learned to fly the parasail and learned some about using updrafts to get lift over some hills. 

It took us much longer to drive down the mountain and pick them up than for them to fly down.

They had the gear all packed up and were waiting for us for some time.  


I asked Princess number six if she would rather have gone to Disney as two of her group did and she said, "I've been to Disney, Paris before so this was much better."


Perhaps all the girls will get a chance to go sometime. It really was a "once in a lifetime event."  Thanks Stacy!