When we woke up in the morning, our initial plans were to take Damien over to this Teen Expo, walk around, and catch the b-boy battle, then head out. The day didn’t exactly go to plan. And that was a good thing.
When we got there, we did a quick survey and headed over to the ping pong tent. Damien, for quite some time, has fallen in love with the sport (?) of ping pong. After meeting with some of the other ping pong players and the tent coordinator, we walked around and checked out the other tents. Since Anabelle had worked for 2 years with Maui High School on their Project Grad, she was hitting up tent after tent for their literature. In the midst of tent hopping, there was a guy decked out in a harness passing out coupons for the Maui Tropical Plantation Zipline.
Intrigued, I wandered over to him and asked him what he was passing out. He said that because of the Teen Expo, the Tropical Zipline was offering a special for expo-goers at $25 for 2 lines. I took the ad to Anabelle and asked her if she wanted to go. Realistically, it was way too good of a price to pass up. After paying, we walked back and asked Damien if he wanted to go. With some peer pressure from his friends, he said okay. We again walked back and decided to check out the lines. Since we already experienced the Haleakala Zipline, the 2 Tropical Zipline lines were a lot shorter and didn’t seem as adrenaline pumping. Even with that taken into consideration, we were still pretty excited.
We were given a quick rundown on the course and got strapped and harnessed up. Damien, Anabelle, and I were paired with 3 other parties and a lone lady who seemed to be conquering some type of fear. As we walked towards the zipline platform, we were given some quick tidbits about the vegetation there. The guides were great. They incorporated humor with their lessons and told a few jokes. As we walked up the first platform, they hooked us onto the cables that ran throughout our first takeoff. Safety was their primary concern and you could definitely tell. After we initially got hooked on, no matter where we moved to, we couldn’t get there without first being unhooked and hooked back up to another line. Within a few minutes, the zipping began. As it should be, the idea of ziplining quickly became a race of who can get across first. We were going in 2’s so Anabelle and our lone visitor went first. Silently, I was rooting hard for Anabelle to get across first. From the get go, Anabelle took the lead and held onto it. Damien and I were up next and the trash talking immediately began. I knew that because I had about 100lbs on Damien, odds are that I was going to win; though I didn’t want to celebrate early. Once the guide gave us the green light, Damien and I took off and it was a sprint. About ¾ of the way down, I noticed that Damien was losing steam. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the other side and had to be fished out by another guide. I on the other hand tried to take video of our race and had no idea where the end of the line was. Then all of a sudden, I felt my come to a halt as my momentum shot me as high as the zipline chord was. Evidently, there are guides at the bottom that use a rope to stop the riders. However, I was coming in with so much speed that I almost sent the guide flying. There were 3 boys that were with our group that were in awe at how crazy I was coming in. That first jump was great.
Shortly after we all took our first plunge, we got hooked up to the second line and getting ready to go. Because Damien and I went last on the first line, we went in reverse order; so now we were first. Also, because Damien was semi-embarrassed about getting stuck the first time, he wanted to make every effort for that not to happen again. Again, when the guide gave us the green light, Damien sat down in his harness while I made the mistake of jumping off. As we were going down, Damien had a marginal lead on me but I felt my weight would help me speed down. Majority of the second line was over the Maui Tropical Plantation lagoon where there are ducks and fish that guests can feed. Also, for those that are interested, you can take a small canoe and paddle around the lagoon. There were many families below us and many of them were oohing and aahing as we zipped over them. I could hear several kids in the wake, “Mom, can I do that?” As this was happening, I could see Damien’s lead diminishing. I really thought I had a chance but the end of the line was coming up. I tried straightening out to get aerodynamic and hope that would be enough. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Actually, it was a photo finish. It’s really hard to say who took the second round but we had fun nonetheless. Anabelle and her partner came in not long after with Anabelle luckily winning their face off. She was smiling ear to ear; and she didn’t even look at it as a race. Call me competitive.
As our zipline came to a close, we unstrapped ourselves and immediately started talking about the experience. We had so much fun. At first, we both Anabelle and I were a bit apprehensive because both lines were a lot shorter and lower than the lines that zipped over in Haleakala. Regardless, we had nothing but fun and are definitely happy we chose to do the line. I now recommend it at work to those that want to experience ziplining but afraid of heights. I’m glad we went and if you choose to give it a whirl, I’m sure you will too.
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