holding on for dear life

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Day two in the keys.... Woke up early because we had an early appointment with the parasailing team.... only to have them cancel/postpone on us because of high wind... We had the option of cancelling or rescheduling for later in the day. We decided to reschedule for later in the day. We had waverunning aka jet skiing aka sea-dooing....at 11:30. That would be a two hour tour around the island.... after that, we would head over and do parasailing... sounded like a good plan...

This whole trip I was a little iffy about the jetskiing. Wasn't sure if I wanted to do it... I was afraid of getting wet and I wasn't sure how wet I"d get being a passanger..... It was a sunny day and I was feeling pretty good, so I decided I'd go on it.... Tricia and I both went. She drove and I hung on to her :O)

The experience started off nicely. We idled out of the marina... not bumpy at all, smooth waters... good pace... It all went crazy from there.... just kidding... once we left the marina, it was a little scary because the water was a little choppy and we weren't going really fast, so we lost the rest of the group. There were probably 8 of us total. Finally the leader of the group aka tour guide aka Devin came back and checked on us. We caught up with the group and heard a little history of the island.... It's all a little blurry to me now, but I"m sure when I was listening to it, it was interesting.. after this one stop, we went off single file and hit the choppiest water there ever was... OK, so maybe I"m exaggerating a little bit, but the water was really really choppy... every time we would hit a wave, salt water would splash into your face and at one point, it even splashed my whole body... not really exciting... but then we hit calmer water and it was nice.

Our next stop was the sand bar.... unfortunately when we got there, there was no sandbar. The water was too high... so we were given the option of going out further into the Atlantic Ocean or going back closer towards the shoreline, where the water was calmer. Tricia and I were the only ones that opted for the calmer ride.... So we followed tour guide Dave back... water wasn't really that much calmer... but it was fine because it was just us two and we were headed back at a good pace... then he stopped.... it appeared that someone in or group who went the other route had fallen out off his ski... we wanted to hang around in case he needed help... in the meantime, brilliant mind that I had... I decided to ask Dave if that happened often... do people flip over often? and then.....

Tricia and I flipped over.. it was instantaneous... I PANICKED!!! Couldn't flip the jet ski over, so Dave had to jump off his ski to come help us..... We then realized that our clothes and wallet were now in the ocean.... Didn't want to leave the wallet with the shop keeper, because we wouldn't want them to steal anything.... Thankfully, we were able to flip the ski back over and I was able to get back on... AND thankfully our wallet and clothing were still in the jet ski... Tricia gets on after me and we flip over again... then I REALLY PANIC because we don't know how the heck we were going to be able to get back on.... I say... I can't swim... then our tour guide gets panicky.... Finally we decided that he would get on his jet ski and I will ride back with him.. except now, since he jumped off his ski to help us flip our ski over.... his jet ski is a few feet away.... So he gets on our ski, Tricia climbs on after, and I"m hanging on to the ski, while still in the water and he skis over to his jet..... Finally we get all situated.. but at this point, we've really lost our wallet.... This is the wallet that has all our money and all our cards and ID.... Oh S*&^ what the heck are we going to do??? We have no ID and we have no money....

I'm hanging onto dear life to Dave and in what seems like took forever, we finally get back to the marina and dock... Thankfully, the shop.. Island Water Sports, kept our IDs... so at least we had that.... Long story short... I'm NEVER getting on another waverunner again.

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