Water Survival in Pensacola

Five hundred feet below I see someone wave a red flag from a boat (it's hard to see what color from so high above though). I cut myself away from the tow rope and begin to fall towards the ocean below. I look up and see a nicely inflated parachute canopy. Then I pull a lever near my waist and with a thump a life raft unfolds and falls to dangle beneath me. I make sure my life vest is inflated, then grab the steering toggles and do a quick circle scanning the water. Fifty feet above the waves I make sure I'm steering into the wind and prepare to splashdown. Before I know it I'm in the water and the canopy drifts down to land on top of me.

This parasailing was the best part of the Water Survival school. It was a three day program down in Pensacola, FL to prepare us for landing in the middle of the ocean and being able to survive and signal a rescue. It was actually a lot of fun despite the 49 degree water. We had some decent wetsuits that made it only somewhat miserable to be in the water for a long period. The idea behind the parasail was to tow you up to five hundred feet in the air to get a taste of parachuting into the ocean. After landing we blew up our life rafts and climbed in to await our rescue several hours later. Another highlight was practicing a helicopter pickup. We bobbed around in the water as a helo came overhead (spraying water everywhere) and dropped a little strap. After hooking that around our body they winched us up - it was pretty cool. Probably the crappiest thing was getting dragged behind the boat in our parachute harness practicing something constructive I'm sure. But overall it was great training and a good time.