In August 2018, my aunt very kindly offered to take me paragliding. She'd done it for her hen-do, and knew that I was keen to give it a go, despite many of my family members being very nervous about the idea. To give you an idea, my mum even upped my travel insurance the morning of my paragliding session. I hadn't tried any 'extreme sports' until this point (unless you include scuba diving or snowboarding), but a part of me wanted to skydive and I thought I'd try paragliding first to see how I'd handle it.
Paragliding is completely dependant on the wind and so often gets rescheduled but luckily we were given the go-ahead in the morning, so we headed to Madalena do Mar in Madeira to tandem paraglide. The instructor was a Portuguese man who spent his summers in Portugal, followed by our winters in Australia (when it was their summer), which I thought was so cool and I was very quickly put at ease. We walked up to the top of a mountain (about 500m above sea level), and laid down the parachute, was was reassuringly much bigger than I'd anticipated. Another thing that shocked me was when I realised that I wasn't going to be attached to the parachute directly, but instead only to the instructor. I trust the carabiner, but I definitely trust the parachute more. We then waited for the winds to pick up so that we could run off a cliff, which wasn't such a calming though; I tried not to think about it but my aunt noticed that I started to go quiet as the time approached.
The way that paragliding works is that once the wind picks up, you run off the edge of a cliff and hope that the wind carries you onwards. After moving a cow out of the way and waiting for about 15 mins, the winds picked up and the next thing I know, we were running as quick as possible until I suddenly saw the land beneath my feet disappear and the sea take its place. The adrenaline kicked it, but after only about 5 minutes it disappeared again. I was shocked by how calm and safe I felt; it reminded me of being on a plane and looking out of the window - you can see that you're unnaturally high in the air but you feel comfortable and relaxed. After about twenty minutes of taking in the views and swirling in the wind, we began our descent.
As we approached our landing strip (a pebble beach), we had to start running to absorb some of the impact and prevent injuries, and then just like that it was over. I really couldn't believe how chill the whole experience has been and how paragliding came to be classified as an extreme sport. Thankfully the additional insurance coverage wasn't necessary, and this experience inspired me to try many more new activities in the following couple of years, including of course skydiving.
I truly believe that life is about having as many experiences as possible, and I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone as often as possible to gain confidence and grow - your reactions may surprise you!
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