I have always fancied doing this .After my great nephew did it , I was determined to give it go even on my own with strangers cos none of the others wanted to do it after Jack and his dad Martin had done it the day before.Oh yeah the wife was still ill in bed with sunstroke and didn’t want me hanging around her all day.There was a doctor and family from Birmingham we had made friends with and he offered to see her.Very good of him , but Carol was recovering by the second day.
The first lot of pictures, and the coming back on the banana boat were taken by my niece Caron , Jack’s mum , the up in the air ones were taken by the paragliding crew.I told Caron I was going to do it and she said they would come and watch like I had the day before.Jack was determined to go up again and said he would pay with his own money.60 Levs it was less than £30.We paid our money and put the life jackets on.We had to take off our water sports shoes , we had bought for swimming in the sea.(I thought were perfect even light than plimsolls.)
We were taken out to the large speed boat on a motorised dinghy.This broken down about half way out and the driver had to walkie talkie the the speed boat crew to come and pick us up.There were five Chinese looking people already on board.We drove off and two of the crew went aft and were sorting the parachute into the correct location.When both sides were right part of it was lifted onto this high hook (i guess when it picked up speed the parachute would catch the wind).We were put in harnesses , ready to go up first.
They told us to go aft and clipped us on to the bottom of the parachute.Soon as the open up the throttle we soared up into the air like a large bird.It wasn’t cold and it wasn’t windy.I held on tight with each hand but Jack wasn’t holding on at all , and waving both hands.They let out the full 150 metres of rope and our views were spectacular.
MORE OF THE STORY TO COME
Arcangelo Lombari 