Our plan for today was to view a couple of beaches on the way to Ölüdeniz Beach then go paragliding. Well, I was going paragliding. Michael was going to take pictures and cheer me on. 🙂

We saw this along the way so stopped to enjoy the view and take a couple of pictures.

Snow on the mountains!

This is Butterfly Valley. Beautiful!! We considered visiting it by sailboat later in our trip, but we don’t think we will make it after all. I am glad we got to see it from up top. You can’t hike down to it.

Our next stop was Hanuman Paragliding on Ölüdeniz Beach. Ölüdeniz Beach is a big, beautiful, and popular beach, and the perfect location for paragliding. Hanuman Paragliding is a trustworthy company. I highly recommend them. If you have an opportunity to select a pilot for tandem paragliding, I recommend my pilot, Törehan Şimşek. He was great – he even let me take control of the chute for a bit,

When we arrived, we were told that we were going to take off from the 1200 meter point because it was too windy for the highest point of 1960 meters. Oh well!

The drive up the mountain to the launching point was a twisty-turny experience. The driver must have driven this road hundreds of times because he drove quite fast (did I mention there are no guardrails?), even on the switchbacks. I am glad I took my motion sickness pills that morning; without them, I would have been pretty carsick by the time we got to the jumping off point.

We saw the top of a chairlift as we were making our way up the mountain, so they clearly ski this mountain.

When we finally stopped, we were told that we were taking off from the 1960 meter point after all. Yay!

A little background: I’ve jumped out of perfectly good airplanes 48 times, so I know what to expect from that. I did not, however, know what to expect from walking off a cliff with an already-open chute over my head. Törehan told me that I should walk when he told me to walk and run when he told me to run. He also told me not to sit down (there is a comfy seat for the passenger) until he told me to. I asked him how fast I should run (is this a sprint?) but I don’t remember what he said. In the end, it didn’t matter, because I think I took maybe two steps before we were airborne. It was pretty windy.

Here are some pictures from the top before we took off.

Before I knew it, we were airborne. We stayed in the “take off” area for several minutes and gained altitude. Then we turned toward the sea and headed out. We were in the air for about 30 minutes. Here are some pics from the sky. I hope you enjoy the beautiful view of the mountains and sea!

Circling back, paragliding is similar to skydiving, with the exception of the first part. In sky diving you freefall for about a minute or so (depending on the altitude of the plane at the time you jump) before opening the parachute. With paragliding, there is zero freefall. Being under the open chute is a nearly identical experience whether you are skydiving or paragliding, as is the landing. Having said all of this, I was in control of the entire process when skydiving but was a passenger as a paraglider, so I can’t speak to all of the differences.

In any event, if you don’t like the idea of skydiving because you don’t want to freefall, don’t like planes, are afraid your chute won’t open, etc., maybe give paragliding a try!

It was time to head back to Seahike. What a perfectly wonderful day!

As the title of this post indicates, we want to share a few pictures of the Oxygen Pub at Kaş marina. I love the atmosphere! It is laid back, and the staff are friendly. We only went once, but we can attest to the quality of the drinks we had.

The Oxygen Pub also makes very good coffee. Of course I had some!

We will be heading northwest in Türkiye by sailboat tomorrow. We will see from the ground much of what I saw from the air. . . and more!