Location: Deshaies, Guadeloupe
Friday was a blast. An entire free day we’ve been anticipating for weeks. Stef’s adventure went well, although not as planned. The whale watchers were ecstatic about multiple whale sightings. And a few other solo activities made for one of the best days yet. I was in a group of eight on “Stef’s adventure.” We signed up for it, not knowing what we were going to do on our free day. This leap of faith paid off with a beautiful Guadeloupan paragliding experience. Matt and I were first up, and when we landed, the Garfather himself, possibly for the first time ever, was speechless. This all was after a wild ride to locate the place.
After being dropped at the dock, we boarded a bus; this bus brought us to another bus stop, and we jumped off at an extravagant mall. We grabbed a bite to eat and got a taxi. The driver did not speak a word of English and did not have a clue what we were trying to say to him. We arrived at where our maps were taking us, and it was in the middle of a neighborhood. We knocked on the door of the house, and Sam’s (the paraglider’s) son opened the door. The nine-year-old boy said, “Sam, not here,” and shut the door. We returned to the frustrated taxi driver’s car and put him on the phone with Sam. After another hour-long ride, we were almost two hours late for our paragliding. Luckily Sam was flexible. After all eight of us had gone and we got our certificates, Brit called our taxi driver. Aside from saying “bonjour,” he spoke in all English to the taxi driver, who must not have gotten a word. He hung up the phone and said: “I think he’s coming.” A quick ten minutes later, his car came into sight. At this point, we were just about late for pickup and still a two-hour drive away. We all sat there wondering how much trouble we would be in once we arrived on Ocean Star. Luckily when we got back, everyone was pretty accepting of the fact that we got lost on the way there, and on the way back, we ran into some closed roads. Everyone else seemed to have had a great day which included Josh getting a dive charter and getting closer to being a Divemaster, Jon having a relaxing spa day, a large group going whale watching and seeing a botanical garden, and a wild day on the boat that consisted of boats in the marina dragging and needing help to reset their anchor. What a day! Thanks for reading 🙂
Pictured: The boys behind the sign for paragliding. The Garfather, Stef, and Me paragliding. A nice rainbow from the taxi on the way home. Some sperm whales were photographed by Amy.