A Perfect View of Ölüdeniz
I have had several adventures in Turkey but amongst those adventures my mind always wanders back to my paragliding experience over Ölüdeniz. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Turkey, Ölüdeniz is a neighborhood set in the Fethiye district of Muğla Province.
I remember when my wife and I first arrived to Ölüdeniz and I thought “wow, this is like heaven.” The clear blue water of the Aesean sea glistened in the sun, the beaches were alive with activity and the town was buzzing with people. It was such a happy feeling that we just wanted to move in! Then, just as we thought it couldn’t get any better we looked up and saw a paragliding frenzy up in the sky. They were all landing perfectly on the grassy lawn parallel to the beach. We instantly knew exactly what we were going to do first.
We quickly checked into our beautiful and inexpensive hotel room then without hesitation went and scheduled our jump. Neither of us had ever done it before so we were quite nervous but knew that if we didn’t try it that we would look back in regret.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a local doner stand and hit the beach to relax a little before we took our adrenaline filled leap off of the mountain. The beach was peaceful with friendly people just enjoying themselves on lounge chairs and in the water. We went for a swim and made it back to Deep Blue Paragliding right when the vans were pulling up to transport everyone to the mountain.
When we got to the top of the mountain and looked out over the ridge all of a sudden reality hit. We’re about to jump off of a mountain. We must be a little crazy! After accepting and embracing our insanity we proceeded to suit up for the take off. We felt pretty good about it because we were in good hands. We had done our research and Deep Blue is one of the two best paragliding facilities in Ölüdeniz. They have award winning professionals on their team and have to make a mandatory one thousand jumps before they can be permitted to pilot.
Usually when people decide to take a running glide off of a mountain they do some serious planning. They watch videos, research best times to go, ask their friends about their experiences and get advice etc. We just showed up and spontaneously decided to have a life changing experience. We were excited!
As my pilot Hincal made sure I was fastened into the passenger harness, he proceeded to guide me to the cliff. We started running and the chute caught wind. I remember the rush as we lifted into the air and got to that point of no return! A feeling of peace came over me and this person who was ultimately just a stranger a few minutes ago became a trusted captain. I looked out at the beautiful land and seascape as we skimmed above like a bird. Legs hanging into the sky and wind carrying us slowly down. It was incredible. As one of their top pilots he asked if I was ready to have some fun. I remember thinking “we’re not having fun yet?” Hinjal told me to grab one of the lines and he took both steering handles then proceeded to pull in one direction. We began to go into deep spiral I began to feel the same rush as an extreme roller coaster ride. I was laughing and hooting and having a blast. This was a trip I would always remember!
We landed safely on the ground and moments after I watched my wife touch down. Mission accomplished! We had just pulled into Ölüdeniz and within the first few hours we were off to a running start. This was something to celebrate! We were getting hungry so we took a trip to downtown Fethiye to enjoy the famous fish market which I’ll leave for a future article.
If there’s any advice I’d have to give you while in Turkey, that would be to make sure and enjoy yourself. There is so much to see and experience that you’ll have to make several trips, but don’t hold back. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do then find a way and go do it because life is filled excuses but it’s also loaded with magic. Go and get some!
Thank you for reading about my experience. If you have similar experiences to share or any questions about anything I’ve mentioned above please feel free to share or ask.
Until we meet again…stay inspired!
