Chris' Paragliding Page

Again there was a long weekend on my little Toshiba calendar and I went to Oshima with a friend from my dormitory. The plan was to cycle around this interesting volcanic island. We entered the ferry in Yokohama and there were people with huge backpacks. I thought they might be divers. And since I had been looking for a diving partner, I asked them. But they were paragliders and so we forgot about the cycling... We were given one of these big back backpacks and we went to the Kushigatayama. This mountain is located right beside the volcano Miharayama which spit out lots of lava in 1990.

There we curiously opened these bags and watched the demonstrations of the teacher. Unfortunately it was very difficult to explain to me how to use that gadget as my Japanese was not so good at that time.

Finally, we climbed up that hill and took off...

It's such an unusual feeling: pleasure and fear at the same time.

Flying like a bird over the clouds. The volcano below, the ocean in front of me. Will I come down before I reach the coast?

On top of Kushigatayama, with my friend Akihiro and other gliders. In the meantime I gave my wings away, at least for a while. We went to Kawaguchi-ko, one of the 5 lakes of Fujisan. It is still a mystery (to me an my instructor) why the glider suddenly collapsed in a height of about 7 metres. I crashed on rocky ground and that is a miracle that none of my bones was broken. I was sooo lucky!

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