St. Kitts ~ Zip-line

St. Kitts
Hello Friends,

Today we had a real treat. Pretty much the only thing not on our inteneria this week was something Shawna discovered while researching fun things to do on the island and that was a zip-line tour of a tropical rain forest. We told our wonderful contact Jane we would like to experience this and she turned around and made it a treat for the entire 7-8th grade students (7 kids total).

We all left (kids, us, and some school chaperons - 13 total) left shortly after rehearsal today (which went great!) and drove the 10 minutes to get there. We signed our life away with many waivers, were weighed, and harnessed up. You wear a modified hand-gliding harness that connects to a trolley that supposedly can hold 6,000 lbs. After a short test line where we learned flying pose and braking pose (also called the birthing position to which our guides would remind us of this by yelling "Head down! Knees up!") we were off to start our tour!

There were four lines in all and it was INCREDIBLE! I felt very secure in the harness and the amazing thing was when you left the platform you felt only about 20 ft off the ground. Then you hit a clearing going 30 mph and suddenly you were 250 above a rain forest looking at the Caribbean Sea. It was breathtaking! Coming to a stop was surprisingly simple as you hit a long series of springs that deaden your speed really well. Thats a pciture of me coming to a stop on the line by the way.

The experience was truly unique and we did capture video of Shawna and I descending the Zip which I hope to share some day. Tonight we ate at a new restaurant in town called Sweet Cane (I think). Had delicious garlic shrimp and some island rum. Tomorrow is the big show and it sounds we may even have two sold out shows! It's going to be the great ending to an already amazing week!

The Adventure Continues - ML