Day 60, Parasailing in Paradise

Bay of Islands

Flying Kiwi Parasail

Our previous visit to Waitangi, Bay of Islands, was in 2016. We watched people having a great time on the parasails.  We tried to find another operator for the rest of that cruise and even since then, but we could never find one that allowed a dry option from the back of a boat.  Now that we have returned, we have booked our first Parasail Adventure here with Flying Kiwi Parasail which is located on the main pier in Paihia.  HAL charges $189.95 USD for this trip.  We bought the exact same trip for $129 NZD or about $80 USD.  Adding on a flying partner, the price per person is $99 NZD or $60 USD.  We booked online before we left the USA.  The GOPRO Video package is an extra $40 NZD, ($25 USD).  You can buy this in advance or order it on the spot once onboard.

 

As an aside, while this port is referred to as “Bay of Island” or Waitangi, the main town here is called Paihia. When you first see a few signs for Paihia, keep in mind that this IS the town you will first visit.

For this tender port, I didn’t get tender ticket until 8:30 AM, 30 minutes after they started passing them out.  I was told it would be an hour wait, and their estimate turned out to be reasonably accurate.

The weather didn’t look good at this point as there was light rain and low clouds.  I called Flying Kiwi Parasail to see if they were still flying. They said that high winds, over 22 knots or so, would cause them to cancel, but high winds were not forecast and we were good to go.

Our tender number was called around 9:30 AM. We were on the tender by 9:50 AM and were on our way at 10 AM.  The ride to the tender pier was pretty smooth, taking about 13 minutes.

“Cruise Ship Ambassadors” welcomed us as we stepped off the tender pier. Large shuttle buses were steps away to take us into town. The shuttle dropped us off at the foot of the pier.

 

 

 

 

The town is pretty small, and you could probably walk up and down every street in about an hour.  There is a park across the street from the shuttlebus stop. This where they set up a craft fair on cruise ship days.

 

Our Parasail flight was scheduled for 11:00 AM. We arrived in town at 10:30 AM and headed down the pier to the meeting point for our group.

 

After filling our some paperwork and signing a waiver, we boarded the boat along with 9 other guests.  There would be a total of 5 flights including ours, 4 flights of 2 people and one triple flight.  Including the setup time each flight takes about 15 minutes. We would be gone for about 90 minutes including the transit time to the parasailing area.

The boat had 2 sets of harnesses and helmets. While one group is flying, the next group is getting fitted up.

 

When it was our turn, we sat on the back of the boat facing forward.  At this point they asked if we wanted a dry landing back on the boat, have our feet dunked, or get a full body soaking.  Everyone on our boat chose the “feet only” dunking”.  We also chose the GOPRO option where they mounted a camera on the end of a pole that is aimed at our faces the entire time.  At the end of the flight they gave us the SD card from the camera that had the video and still images of our flight.

 

You can carry anything you’d like on the flight at your own risk.  We took our own GOPRO cameras that are on small floatable handles with wrist straps.  The ride is not that windy and I would feel comfortable taking an ordinary camera with a safety strap, but there is always a chance you may get inadvertently dunked so I wouldn’t take anything that you wouldn’t want to get wet.

 After we were attached to the parasail, the boat accelerated and we quickly flew off the back of the boat and immediately. began flying higher and higher.  While the tow cable is 1300 feet long our maximum elevation off the water was about 600 feet.

 

We felt very secure in our harnesses and didn’t experience any anxiety due to the heights.  It’s a different sensation then you would experience when close to the edge of a cliff or in a tall building.

 

 

We had a great time flying around and enjoying the view.  The wind noise was minimal and we could easily talk to each other.

After 10 minutes they winched us back toward the boat. When we were about 10 feet off the water, they dropped us for a bit till our feet scrapped along the water before pulling us back on the boat.

 

The other passengers on the boat were taking pictures of each other as we were launched and we were able to exchange photos via email or Airdrop once we got back in the boat.

We returned to the pier around 12:30 PM and headed down the pier to browse the nearby gift shops.

We discovered a fish and chips restaurant appropriately named “Just Fish and Chips” and decided to check it out.  HERE is their page on Tripadvisor.  Fortunately “Just Fish and Chips” was a short walk from the gift shops as it started to rain and we had to scamper the last 50 yards to avoid getting too wet.

 

The menu is limited as the name implies, they also serve beer and wine.  Their free WiFi turned out to be blazing fast – over 50 MBPS.  We decided to linger here for another hour so we could update our iPhones and some of our apps.

The last shuttle bus was scheduled for 3 PM. We left the restaurant around 2:45 walking back to the shuttle stop in a light rain. It was about 3:30 PM when we got back on board the Amsterdam.

The entertainer this evening was an Irish Comedian named William Caulfield.  He was really funny and we enjoyed his show very much.