Each time the black clock hands ticked closer to 1 pm I felt my heart hammer against my chest. The butterflies in my stomach must have been angry because it felt like they were trying to break out. My nerves had been getting worse all morning because today I was going parasailing. I had never even heard of parasailing before yesterday and that made me super nervous. Everyone else that was going was nervous about how high up in the air they would be, but I was nervous about the ocean below. I had always been afraid of the ocean and being 300 feet over it was better than being in it, but I didn’t know if the cables would break and then I would fall in the ocean.
Eventually, 1:00 rolled around and everyone piled into the cars and we left. It wasn’t very far away, so I didn’t have much time to overthink things. We paid and went over to where the life jackets where. I took off my grey flip-flops and stumbled over the assortments of sandals and flip-flops to the railing with life jackets. I completely guessed to what size I wore, but I think the one I grabbed fit, I still don’t really know. I struggled to zip up my life jacket because the zipper got stuck on the fabric. Everyone started to head towards the boat, so I quickly got the fabric out of the zipper and finished zipping it. I hopped on the boat, it felt like my nerves were strung as tight as a violin string. As soon as everyone was seated, the boat began to leave the dock.
There were two drivers on the boat. Patrick, the one that was actually driving the boat was a redhead and had black sunglasses and a black bandana on to match. The other guy, Derick, had black hair, no shirt, and a heavy Indian accent. Derick must have sensed everyone’s nerves because he cracked jokes every minute. Once we were quite a ways away from the other boats Derick showed us how to put on our harnesses. Then he came around and tightened our harnesses. I sat down after he tightened mine.
“I’m so nervous,” I whispered to Charli as cold salt water splashed against my face.
“Dude, same.” She responded.
Patrick asked who wanted to go first and a mother said she wanted to go first, but her son did NOT want to go first.
He yelled “There’s was no way in the world I am going first” He planted his feet, so his mom couldn't pull him up to the front of the boat. Finally, the mom suggested that someone else go first. We went parasailing in groups of three. I was with Charli and Heather, they both wanted to get it done and over with. I wanted to go second because then I would be sure that it was safe.
“We’ll go,” Heather screamed over the sound of crashing waves. I felt my throat tighten like I had just swallowed a golf ball. I didn’t want to say anything, so I kept my mouth shut and cracked my knuckles. A habit I do when I’m bored or nervous. Heather stood up and Charli and I followed. They clipped us to the bar connected to the Patrick Star, from Spongebob, parasail. As soon as I sat down all my butterflies went away and somehow into Charli. I think she just realized what she had signed up for. She kept repeating “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.”
The boat lurched forward and we were jerked into the air. It was like we were playing hot potato with the nerves because now Charli was calm and Heather was screaming her lungs out. Once the cable was all the way extended Heather stopped screaming. Charli and Heather looked at the amazing view, occasionally screaming when we rocked or jerked, but there was no longer anything I was afraid of. I felt like I was flying. The only thing I could see while I was up there was the beautiful view of the sky and ocean. You could see for miles, it looked as if the ocean was never-ending. The longer we were up there the more comfortable I felt. After about ten minutes we were pulled back in and Heather’s ear-piercing screams started up again.
We landed on our feet and immediately we were bombarded with questions. Was it scary? How high up was it? Was it fast? Everyone talked at once and we did our best to assure that it was fine and that no you didn’t go fast at all and that once you were up there you didn’t think about the height. After we sat back down I thought back to 1:00 this afternoon, how I was so nervous about basically everything and how I felt now, no different than yesterday. The only difference about today was that the obstacle I had to overcome was bigger and scarier than the ones I’d faced before.