The Rest of Cannon's Birthday

Cannon had also asked as part of his birthday celebration to go to Okuma which is a military "resort" on the north end of the island.  The place is no frills, but good, wholesome family fun set on the most beautiful little peninsula of land.  What he really wanted to try was parasailing and since I have been wanting to do this myself, I whole-heartedly agreed!  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a reservation at the resort so we opted to drive there and back in a day (only 1 1/2 hours each way, but that's a long way on this island!)  We had to be there by 9 am to sign up for the parasailing, and besides one of the best things about Okuma is breakfast in the restaurant so it served us well to be there early.  The biscuits and gravy at the restaurant is the closest thing to Cracker Barrell's we'll see for two years!

Everything started off well, we got an 11 o'clock reservation for parasailing (Stevie declined due to his fear of heights), we had breakfast (buffet on a Sunday which meant unlimited biscuits and gravy for the kids - woo-hoo!) and then we still had an hour to wait for the big moment. 

This is where I should probably pause and say that we've been having some weather issues in Okinawa this summer.  Instead of the intense, melt-the-wax-in-your-ear heat and humidity and sunshine that is typical here, we've had a lot of rain and odd rain/sun days.  Like you look outside and it's blue sky with puffy clouds, then you look out 15 minutes later and it's pouring rain, then you look out 15 minutes later and it's blue sky with pouring rain.  Very odd.  And you have to know that I'm notorious for not checking the weather, because it is usually wrong.  So knowing this I'll continue our story...

About 10:20 I bought the kids tickets to go on the bungy trampoline which they absolutely loved!  Note in the pictures the blue sky with puffy clouds. 

Look Mom, no hands!

As soon as Emmy finished her turn I looked across the water and yelled "run!" - we could see the rain coming at us across the water!  So 10:40 looked like this...

11:00 rolled around and it was beginning to clear again so they said the parasailing was on.  I kissed Stevie, London and Emmy goodbye on the beach, told Stevie to raise the kids well if we didn't make it back, and then got on the boat with Cannon. 

Half way out I looked over to shore and thought, this doesn't look good. 

But the captain pressed on until we got out into the open.  At which time he noticed that we could no longer see the mountains because of the rain.  The scary thing is I think he would have still put us up in the air had I not called it off and said it was OK to take us back to the dock!  I was joking to Cannon that had we gone up we wouldn't have seen anything because the cloud cover was so low.  And he said, "Yeah, how are they going to see if we make the X with our arms when we're in the clouds?"  (The written English safety directions handed to us said you were supposed to make an X if you wanted to come down!  The crew spoke no English.)

So our parasailing adventure came to an unsuccessful end, but I know we'll try again if we ever get a sunny day...

Stopping at a roadside stand on the way home.

Two tired out kids!

The dragon fruit I bought from that roadside stand.  Have you ever seen anything so exotic?