Today had been a very different Christmas Day compared to the rest of mine these past few years.I've decided to support my husband by watching him paraglide his way to happiness. I took my camera and captured his moments up in the air. He mentioned to me during our drive to the hill, " Humans have always been fascinated about flying." I couldn't disagree with him more since I have always been drawn to the idea of jumping off the plane everytime I'm in a commercial airplane taking off. I acted on that goal three years ago by skydiving, but that's another story.
There we were, in the middle of the desert, sipping the last contents of diet soda in the plastic cup watching his paraglide teacher and another paraglider warming up by ground handling. The flies caught up with us by the scent of double cheeseburger in our vehicle.
 |
| We drove up the man made sand hill |
 |
| Take off |
 |
| Aiming for a proper landing |
I asked him how it feels like up there. He said apart from being focused on which strings to pull and how to shift his body weight and flow through the wind current, the feeling of freedom is exhilarating.
 |
| Yohann and his pilot teacher |
I learned today that the wind speed should not exceed 18km/h for paragliding. The professional ones could handle 20km/hr. However, any speed beyond 21km/h is considered dangerous.
The wind at the topmost cliff was almost 26km/hr today. It was completely unsafe. The view up there was breathtaking though. The sand dunes were beautiful. They provided me with inspiration for some painting ideas.
We took the level below as it was much safer there. Yohann struggled a lot with the constantly changing wind direction. He had to control the orientation of his glider before taking off.
The wind speed was too strong, it instantly lifted him off the ground.
He took the thermic as the hot air pushed him up in order to fly higher and prolong the flight.
He spent the remaining afternoon ground handling hoping that the wind become more stable while I spent time reading and writing in the van. Hubby was very pleased for my presence even though he knew it's not really my cup of tea. I am happy to have shared this time with him in his passion of flying. In return, he asked me out on a movie date to watch 'The Tourist'and a nice dinner afterwards. I'm a happy girl! 
0 comments