Jumping off a boat!
We had just finished kayaking from the hidden lagoon back to our Halong Bay cruise boat. Margaret, the Scot living in Warsaw and Teo, the Singaporean travelling with his parents, had opted to stay on the motor boat and skip the kayaking. So it was only Jamie & I and the uber tall dutch couple, Renate and Robbert who had kayaked through a small cave in one wall of the limestone islands of Halong Bay to reach a secluded lagoon. It was so beautiful and peaceful, and we had the whole lagoon to ourselves for 10 minutes before other kayakers also started to paddle in.
Now it’s time for some swimming…and jumping, it turns out. Renate, the dutch girl, starts things off by jumping off the lower deck of the boat, straight into the water. I’m a bit nervous, as I’m a terrible swimmer, and don’t normally jump into any sort of water! The lower deck is not so high from the water, so I quickly pinch my nose and dive in. 3 seconds later, I bob to the surface…easy peasy!
“That was easy, right?” says Robbert. “Okay, now we go jump from the second deck”.
Oh…really? Yah I guess I could give that a try…
So I climb back onto the boat and make my way to the ledge off of the second deck. Again, pinch my nose and go for it. Again, not too bad!
Now, it’s time for the real challenge…jumping from the top deck. Bold from my first two successful jumps, I quickly make my way to the third deck. But when I look down, I feel my legs turning to jelly. How come the third deck is so much higher than the first two?!?! Shit…now I’m up here and have to jump, but it’s too scary! I stand for a few seconds and make to jump but pull back each time. It’s really high, and the longer I stand there, the more chicken I become.
“Jamie, come jump with me”, I call out to Jamie, who’s on the second deck, having a cigarette.
He doesn’t really want to, but seeing the panicked look on my face, says “okay, let me finish this, and I’ll come jump with you”.
By the time Jamie climbs up, I’m even more scared and one of the Vietnamese crew members have also climbed onto the third deck to show me how easy it is. He jumps right in and looks up at me from below. Now there’s a full audience…Robbert, Renate, the Vietnamese guy, and several other people are watching from the boat.
I realise that the longer I stand up there, the more shaky my legs become, and the more time I have to over think it, so finally I decide to go for it and just jump!!! Another fear conquered!
Poor Jamie, who had climbed up to support me is now the only one left on the third deck. He wants to jump, but like me has had the courage sucked out of him once he saw the distance to the water. Now that I’m safely in the water, it’s my turn to coax him…”don’t think too much, just jump straight and pinch your nose”, I say. Jamie mulls over everything and eventually we give up on him. “Climb down and forget about it”, I say after 20 minutes.
I do one more jump from the second deck, and then make my way back to the cabins to have a shower to get ready for dinner. Once inside my room, I hear Tiger, our tour guide, shouting, then the sound of a big splash, and then lots of cheering. Ahh…Jamie did it!!
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Our Halong Bay tour consists of day cruising around Halong Bay and a night spent on the boat, anchored in Halong Bay, followed by a second day of biking and hiking on Cat Ba Island. The night is spent at a Hotel on Cat Ba Island. The third day is mostly spent returning to Hanoi.
