“Un-Hunh.”
“And your right hand grabs these lines here...”
“Un-Hunh...”
“Are you getting this?”
“Un-Hunh...”
And use your right hand to brake like this...”
“Un-Hunh...”
Are you sure you’re OK with this?”
“Un-Hunh...”
“OK... now grab the pulleys, and sit down in your harness....”
“Un-Hunh”
“And away you GO!”
“Un-....AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”
Yeah... it really did go that way... but here it is from the beginning.
Friday came very early, with the knock from room service at 6AM. Our Zip line tour would begin at 7:15 and we had to hustle breakfast and be ashore by 7:05. So far so good... then we met our Tour greeter and first thing she hands us was... Liability Waivers to fill out and sign... Hmmmmmm not a warm and fuzzy feeling here.
The bus ride to the Rainforest Canopy and Zipline Adventure was a short
run up into the forest where we joined our guides, Hurricane, Justin, and Meredith [called Nightmare...not sure why] in the “Hook Up Room”. Here we were outfitted with harnesses, cables, helmets, and gloves. After a short lecture on the do’s and don’ts, we are checked out one last time and head to the 4X4 truck that would transport us up to the zipline “
jumping off” point. Here we got the second part of the safety and how-to lecture and executed a short training zip to insure we got it right before we went too much further.Now... lets understand something... the Dragon Lady is extremely acrophobic and this was going to be a serious test for her, and so far she was holding up well.
The first couple in our group took off and then it was D.L.’s turn... hence the opening dialogue
that we won’t repeat again for brevity sake. I had brought along both the 35mm and Video Camera and unfortunately she had the digital hooked onto her rig so the only pics of her are yet to be developed, or on video which we will have to transfer from tape to disc when we get home. Suffice it to say... she handled it like a trooper. She did manage to get some shots of me, so that will have to do for this post. I also managed to get video of some of my zips so the final edit should be very interesting. See what we did get on the Picasa Album at the slideshow link on the right.Next was a longer zip, followed by yet a longer run and then came the Rope Bridge. This would
be the ultimate test for her because she had to keep from looking down, and... She was the first one onto the bridge. Fortunately the fellow behind her sensed her distress and coached her along with some hints on where to hold on etc. Once on the next deck you could see her visibly exhale and relax...Next came the longest Zip and of course the guides had a little fun at our expense talking about having to keep real straight or we’d bounce off a couple of trees. Not really... the lines are way off from the trees but it looks close from the jump off spot. Once again she did great as the lead off Zipper and we all reached the last stop without incident, or bouncing off any trees.
Now came her next big test. We had to Rappel down from the last stop and she was visibly
disturbed by this, but trooper that she is she figured if firemen [and Meredith ] could do it, so could she, and having no choice but to follow the instructions, over the side she went and landed safely 30 feet down. She managed to get a shot of me coming over [I had done this before so no worries] and we began to take off all our gear.It was then that we were told, that we had one more adventure... a giant slide 150 feet long, at a 30 degree slope on a burlap bag. Uh-oh.... she was about to balk at this but Meredith coaxed her into the bag and off she went.... with a loud wWoooooHoooooo, or maybe it was another AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
Next it was my turn and I had the video camera set to record my decent. Unfortunately she did not have time to get her camera ready to catch me coming down and dontcha know it... I accidently hit the off button on the video camera as I jolted off the ledge, sooooo.... determined to record the wild ride, I trudged back up all 155 steps to the top of the slide [and boy did my legs and back complain about that] and hit the slide again... this time keeping my thumb away from the off switch.Our exuberant team trudged back to the 4x4 and headed down to the final room to pick up our
personal gear that we had left in secure tubs in the ready room, and headed for the exit thru the requisite gift shop. Here we could check out the automatic photo of our slide run. Illy’s came out great, but my face was covered by the camera as I was almost on my back coming down.
We bade our Guides a thankful farewell, and boarded the bus back to downtown Ketchikan. We 
killed a little time walking around town on the perpetual tchotchke search, visiting Creek Street along the way. Creek Street was originally the Red Light District of this old time mining town and 
still has the original Brothel “Dolly’s House” of the “Hello Dolly” fame. The rest of the lascivious parlors have been converted in to tchotchke shops hawking everything from hand made soaps, the ubiquitous T-shirt shops, totems, 
jewelry, a few restaurants and a dog that woofed for tips... seriously he had big money in his collar.After a few choice photos and purchases, we headed back to the ship
with a couple of tchotchke stops along the way. Since we had a short day here, we were back onboard by 11:30 and headed for a quick lunch and back to the cabin for some photo uploading, and a short nap that turned out longer than we expected that took us past our regular dining time. With more NOWAT to edit, we headed up to the LIDO and grabbed some Pizza and snacked in the room with a couple of beers and finished the picture upload.Tomorrow we head for Victoria, hoping to arrive by 6PM for those that have tours booked. Since we have nothing planned [Butchart Gardens will take too long and we have to be back aboard by 11:30pm] we’ll play it by ear... and you'll hear all about it in the next episode.
Ciao 4 Now
Chuck & the “Fly’s Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease”, Dragon Lady
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