Paul and I had arrived at Wallaby Ranch so I could write a feature article about the hang gliding Mecca. (I can’t wait for you to see it – it was great fun to prepare for and write.) However, I got another totally unexpected treat when Malcolm Jones, Wallaby’s owner and manager, took us for a tour.

When I peeked into a hangar I saw her.  My jaw dropped.

The SeaMax was shimmering white and immaculate, her wings stretched like an invitation. I began to salivate and sidled closer, trying not to drool on her canopy. She had landing gear and floats, plus one more vital feature -- 2 seats. Any air-groupie knows what that means. Bumming a ride might not be out of the question.

Luckily, Malcolm was sensitive to the subtle signals I was giving off, like leaping up and down and running my hands over her leading edge and repeatedly murmuring, “Oh please, oh please.” I few minutes later I was strapping myself into the tidy blue harness, an enormous grin plastered across my face.

Paul shook his head. “You’re hopeless. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

I wasn’t. I handed him the camera so he could snap a few pictures before I disappeared into the sky with Malcolm. We rolled down the generous runway and climbed above the pines, heading south over lakes, fields and forests. The plane’s clean wings sliced through the air.

When I’m below 2,000 feet in a hang glider, I’m either trying to grab a bit of lifting air to claw my way back to altitude, or I’ve given up and am figuring out my approach.  I didn’t have to worry about that, plus Malcolm didn’t seem eager to spin the plane, turn it upside down, or swoop close to the earth, so I was free to relax and inhale the view.

“Let’s put it down there.” Malcolm gestured at a lake by an abandoned quarry.

I giggled, recognizing the place. I’d landed my hang glider in the field a year before. It was only slightly less complex than climbing Everest for Paul to find his way back to it in the truck to rescue me, something he’s never let me forget. We glided past my field-of-shame and dipped down to the remote lake.

“It’s harder to land in the lakes when they’re really glassy,” Malcolm said. “See how the sky reflects in the water? It makes it harder to judge how far above it you are.” You could have fooled me. He greased it in so smoothly I could barely tell when we touched down. We cruised around and checked out the wildlife.

“See the gator?” Malcolm asked.

“No, I missed him,” I said.

We took off into the air and made another pass. The alligator barely had the tip of his nose poked out of the water. He thought he was completely hidden under the surface, but flying overhead gave us a perfect view of his entire body.

It was fun for me, and Malcolm said it was fun for him, too. He explained that turning people on to new experiences and sharing in their enthusiasm is what keeps them fresh and exciting for him, adding that it was actually self serving to take people on adventures. That makes him the ideal person to take others flying, because it is what he wants to be doing.

As much as I’ve been up in the air in Florida, flying in an amphibious aircraft lent it a whole new perspective. It gives you access to places that you absolutely could not visit any other way. Flying low and slow is what I find beautiful, and being able to land on both water and land makes it much safer, since there’s always either a field or lake within easy glide. I also loved tooling across the lake in a plane – maybe just because it seemed so odd.

Add this adventure to “the bucket list!” You have got to try it!

This is the link to Wallaby Ranch, where you can go hang gliding (or buy a SeaMax): http://www.wallaby.com/

This is a link where you can find out more about the SeaMax (the cool Brazilian-made plane that we flew): http://www.seamaxusa.com/

This is a link to a place in Key West that will take you flying in a sea plane: http://www.seaplanesofkeywest.com/