If you knew me, you’d be aware that I am probably the least adventurous person on the planet. I am so conservative in my life habits that I get a flutter of nervousness if I have to venture too far out of my comfort zone.
I am not sure if this is due to getting older or just stupidity, but there you have it. So planning a tropical vacation is a huge step for me.
My husband George and I, having been cheated out of our summer vacation by me breaking my foot, decided to treat ourselves to a trip to the Bahamas the week before Thanksgiving.
Now, normal people would be thrilled about this and counting the days till departure for warmer climes. Not me. I worry. WHAT is everyone gonna do at home without me? What do I bring to wear? Will the hotel’s coffee be good? Yeah. I know. Not normal.
So, long story short, we go to the Bahamas. I pretty much forgot all my anxiety the second we stepped into the shuttle that took us to the airport. Keep in mind that it was approximately 20 degrees the day we left, and the forecast for the Bahamas was sunny and 80.
We got to our hotel and whisked up to our room. When we opened the door to our room, all we saw was ocean.
The whole back wall was a sliding glass door leading to a huge terrace overlooking the beach. If we wanted to, we could lean over our terrace and spit on the people lying on the beach. (We didn’t.)
Anyway, we settled in and began to relax. It was not difficult to do, seeing as how it WAS sunny and 80, the hotel was beautiful, and there were rum drinks. I realized that I had basically forgotten how to completely relax.
We had always said that we wanted to go parasailing. Well, guess what they had at our hotel? Besides rum drinks. Yep. Parasailing. (They also had jet-skis and banana boats but with my history of clumsiness, we ruled them out pretty much immediately.)
It took us two days to work up the courage to parasail. Two days and several (dozen) rum drinks.
I was afraid that the two Bahamians would not be able to lift me onto the boat, (and I vociferously let them know that) but they did. Hurdle One jumped. Then they strapped us into these devices that wrapped around our hips and created a seat. Lifejackets completed the ensemble.
Now George will tell you that this never happened, but I think he was distracted by so many young European women wearing string bikinis on the beach. It happened, trust me. I had to crawl onto the front of the boat and sit down. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.
I crawled over the seat and onto the front of the boat, where the parasail and all the straps and hooks were. I went to sit down and one of the hooks got snagged in my lifejacket.
The boat heeled at that moment and I started to slide toward the edge, all the while yelling, “I’m going over!” (Excuse the graphic nature of this, but at that point, I kind of urinated myself. Luckily everything else was wet and I was wearing a bathing suit, so no one knew). I was dangling by my lifejacket from the parasail and headed overboard.
Anyway, we got it sorted out and up we went! It was the best feeling in the world! The water was about a hundred shades of turquoise and we could see the whole island! The boat cruised around for 30 minutes with us soaring like birds.
After five minutes, my hands started to hurt from clutching the strap for dear life. George couldn’t turn to his left for some reason. It made him nauseous. One of the boat operators was taking pictures of us with my iPhone so we kept having to smile and wave.
They finally reeled us in and with that, one item was scratched off our bucket list.
Moral of the story: Life is short. Remember how to relax and just DO IT!
