Paragliding in Phuket

So I'm not in Thailand at the moment, readers of my last post will know that I have made it to Australia for a few weeks to visit my old mom. I did dust off the old bike I found in mom's shed and had a great ride on it a few days ago. Today I'm traveling to the north of Australia where I will join my sister's yacht for some exploration of the islands and reefs of the lower sections of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

So in the meantime I would like to share with you some recent photos I took at a place called Laem Phromthep in the far south of Phuket Island (my home). High on this headland overlooking the Andaman Sea and the beautiful Naiharn beach is a grassy slope that evidently is perfect to run down with a parachute and launch into the air! Paragliding is a badass sport and what makes this location even more badass is the huge wind farm behind the slope!

Now I have zero knowledge about paragliding. I am a sailor so have a fair enough understanding of wind dynamics. Launching a paraglider into the wind with a bloody massive windfarm behind me is scary as shit. I mean look at the size of these things!

This last two photos were stock but the following are photos I snapped on my phone while watching them. It was a fantastic day to be photographing them. I was actually showing a dear friend around some secret things to do and see in Phuket. She was visiting from Bangkok and only had one day free. I wanted to show here things that were unusual and interesting instead of the standard tourist traps. These are my pics from the launch spot. We sat there for an hour or so watching these guys carefully unpack the parachute, quietly watch the wind for a while then with no warning run down the hill and launch into space. Just awesome!

After that we headed down to one of Phuket's covid deserted beaches and had a swim. Im jobiker and I'm pretty sure I will never fly a paraglider in front of a windfarm. Respect! Peace to all and thoughts to all the Ukrainians doing battle instead of sports!

PS that photo is not me...:) But I did take it.