{"id":1184,"date":"2013-07-04T20:08:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T01:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2013-07-04T20:08:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T01:08:04","slug":"para-sail-away-over-the-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/para-sail-away-over-the-gulf\/","title":{"rendered":"(Para) Sail Away Over the Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ORANGE BEACH, ALABAMA \u2014 I\u2019m being hauled out to sea on a fast boat called High Maintenance<\/i> along with a dozen or so folks, our bottoms bouncing as we break through the waves once we past the bridge that separates the bay from the Gulf of Mexico. All of us hold on to the handrails or the cargo holds below, both to keep from being flung overboard and to avoid future chiropractic appointments. At least that\u2019s my plan. I\u2019m at least a generation older than just about everybody else on this vessel. There are a half-dozen teens, a couple ten-year-olds, a few young adults in their 20s, a couple of moms in their 30s, and me. The two crew members are lean, fit and annoyingly young.<\/p>\n

I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky.<\/i><\/p>\n

I cannot believe that song keeps going through my head. It is like an annoying television commercial that keeps popping up in the screen that passes before my eyes. I don\u2019t even like that song. It\u2019s insipid, but while I\u2019m headed out to sea I cannot erase it from the iPod in my brain.<\/p>\n

On the cusp of turning 58, I am about to go parasailing for the first time in my life. For 10 glorious minutes I will dangle beneath a parachute 800 feet in the air while being towed by High Maintenance <\/i>over the Gulf of Mexico. Scratch one from the bucket list. Admittedly it was pretty far down the list, just above riding in a hot-air balloon. I plan on doing that soon as well. My last attempt came 30 years ago when I was going to do a feature story for a newspaper, but the flight got scrubbed because of high winds.<\/p>\n

I pondered parasailing for the first few days of vacation, watching the boats pulling folks across the horizon while sitting on the beach. \u201cReckon what could go wrong?\u201d I asked my Beautiful Mystery Companion. \u201cIf the rope breaks, seems like you would just float gently down into the ocean, and you\u2019re wearing a life jacket.\u201d\u00a0 She said she had no idea, but told me to go for it. Finally I called to make a reservation.<\/p>\n

When I told the fellow I was sailing solo, he asked how much I weighed. About 145 pounds, I said. You need to weigh at least 160 pounds, he said. Otherwise a wind gust can send you plunging 800 feet into the ocean at breakneck speed and kill you. And we wouldn\u2019t want that. No, we would not want that, I allowed. Still, he told me to show up first thing in the morning, when the winds were calmer, and he would see what we could work out. Besides, I was fudging about five pounds light on the weight. And, I must say, this is the first occasion in many years where I have been told that I did not weigh enough.<\/p>\n

Everyone on the boat had a partner except for a young woman probably in her late 20s, and me. She was a few inches taller than me and probably weighed about the same, though I wasn\u2019t about to ask. We were going to be the last to sail away into the sky, first me solo and then her. She had already gone up the day before, and planned to do it again later that day. Clearly, she was hooked. By then, having watched a pair of 10-year-olds lift off from the stern, what few butterflies fluttering in my stomach had vanished. I was raring to launch myself up into the sky.<\/p>\n

The deckhand turned to us. \u201cIt\u2019s too windy up there. Y\u2019all really need to go together,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you go up alone, that rope is liable to break.\u201d Then what happens, I asked. Well, you\u2019ll probably die, he said, because the parachute will start twisting around like a kite whose string has been cut.<\/p>\n

Ok, that\u2019s all I needed to know. I introduced myself to the young woman, and we were strapped in side-by-side. Up we went, that blasted song still circling inside my skull.<\/p>\n

The flight was all too brief but just lovely. It was so quiet. Neither of us said much. I admired the sky, looked down at the ocean from above, hoping to see dolphins without luck. The wind rocked us as if we were swinging in a park. Too soon we were being reeled in, landing on our feet back on the boat\u2019s deck. That could be the best $48 I ever spent.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll parasail again, unless the ride is longer and a bit less touristy. But I must say I believe I did fly for a few minutes, and I wouldn\u2019t trade having done it for anything.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just glad that song has quit playing in my head.<\/p>\n

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Print this entryORANGE BEACH, ALABAMA \u2014 I\u2019m being hauled out to sea on a fast boat called High Maintenance along with a dozen or so folks, our bottoms bouncing as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[46,47,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-46","category-2013-2010","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1185,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/1185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}