Tintin and his Incredible Skydive

Receiving an email from Pascal is really like buying a new Tintin comic book. What new unbelievable adventures has our mild-mannered hero gotten himself into this time? And the fact that Pascal's real life dog is actually named Milou (as was the anglicized "Snowy" in the original French stories) only serves to emphasize the resemblance. Too bad Pascal's Milou has to stay home and just read his master's emails.

So as Tintin/Pascal's Amazing Australian Adventure nears its end, his latest email finds him traveling to the far north of Queensland, to Cairns, exploring the Great Barrier Reef. He swims, impervious to sharks and jellyfish (the most poisonous in the world lurk in these waters). He strokes the smooth skin of giant clams. He and an Aussie girl friend sleep under the stars, or try to, while bombarded all night long by fruit bats. He awakens to the "crazed" (his word) laugh of kookaburra birds. He eats kangaroo burgers (!) at the funky Green Ant.

And ..... he goes skydiving. Shhhh, listen. He is telling his story................
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yes... that's right... we went SKY DIVING!!!!! AHHHH!!!! HOLY CRAP! SOOOO INCREDIBLE! 14,000 feet! We took off in a tiny plane, with 3 other people all strapped to the fronts of instructors, and took off! Up... and up... and up we went! We hit the clouds at only 4,000 feet! We went another 10,000 feet ABOVE the clouds! The "door" was a flimsy sheet of plexyglass that they only closed right before we took off. We were wondering if they were going to close it at all! Anyways... once up to 14,000 ft, the door slid open and Anna was the first one out! In a flash... she was gone! One more person went before I took the plunge. I had to sit on the edge, with my feet hanging out... while my dive instructor told me to put my head back, cross my arms... and whoosh! we were out!

You get that feeling where you stomach comes up to about your throat for the first few seconds... and then you open your arms and embrace the wind flying at 280 km/h. You can't hear anything, not even the loudest yell you've ever bellowed. 60 seconds of free fall... goes by in the blink of an eye. Down, and down you go, watching the blankets of clouds rush towards you. I saw Anna and the other guy disappear suddenly in to the clouds and I followed. Once in the clouds it immediately got much cooler and you could feel the dampness all around you. About half way through the clouds Wayne, my instructor, pulled the rip-cord and suddenly everything stopped! We floated out of the clouds and after I popped my ears (wow was that painful!) I whooped and yelled with pure elation! Wayne took me into some spins as we drifted down to the field in which we landed effortlessly. 3,793 jumps Wayne had done. So I felt perfectly safe. It was the ride of my life! I am most definitely going to do it again! Something that everyone should at least try once! That night Helen took us to the airport and we said our farewells. I heartily thanked Helen for all of her hospitality and we took off for the second time, but this time we weren't shivering with terror! In fact... we slept most of the way back to melbourne. Back in Melbourne the temp was 5 deg C as opposed to a high of 32 deg C in Cairns... oh well... all the better to study for my last two finals on the 20th and 21st!

Overall... yet another fantastic adventure in the land down under. My last in Oz I fear.

then off to FIJI!!!! :)
------------------------What great stories. Looking forward to your return, Pascal!