If at first you don't succeed... skydiving is not for you ;) !That's right. We jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. And you know what, it was awesome!!
When we got there, we made our way to the hanger. We were originally planning on going with a group of people, but it's harder than you think to round up people to go skydiving with. One problem would be the money, the other is.. well, probably the jumping out of an airplane part. :P
They threw suits at us and we stepped into the gear. The tandem jumpers came over and started explaining to their diver what was going to happen. They started tightening the straps and checking the parachute. My tandem jumper came about 5 minutes later. His name was Argyle. He had a wide smile on his face and worked faster than the rest, he gave me a huge high five... and we were ready to board the plane.
Wait a minute.. "Do I need to know anything?? Like what to do, or how to pull the parachute, or anything??" Argyle just laughed and said, "Naw.. just don't kill me, and we'll be just fine. Well unless my narcolepsy kicks in, but then I'm sure you'll figure out what to do!"
The plane ride was beautiful. The whole way up I was just thinking, I can't believe I am just going to jump out of this thing - we keep getting higher and higher! But there was laughter through-out the plane, and everyone was just having a good time, relaxed and telling jokes. When we finally got to the altitude of 12,500 feet, the sliding side door opened.
The first two out of the plane were single jumpers, a boy and a girl. Followed by them were a couple on their anniversary - and they were having their jump filmed, so us in the back kept leaning into their shot and grinning. We were last out of the plane. At this time Argyle had hooked up all the latches between him and I and was now physically sliding me forward towards the opening. It helped having him be so much bigger than I, because I felt really safe, and he seemed to know exactly what to do. We reached the opening and everything looked so tiny and far away down below. "One, two... three!" We jumped.
Skydiving is nothing how you would think it would be. It honestly felt like I was floating. The ground still seemed like forever away, so I just smiled and enjoyed the view. We spun a few times, and I heard Argyle yell in excitement.
I knew the ground was getting closer, so I held onto the straps and the parachute deployed. I loved that part. It felt as if we were getting pulled back upwards into the sky. The view was awesome, and we started spinning and flying this way and that way in the air. (afterwards someone mentioned one of the parachuters looked as if they were going crazy in the air, yeah.. that would've been us!)
My ears stung. I held my nose and blew to try and pop them. It helped, but I still couldn't hear out of my left ear. The ground came closer, and Argyle just told me to hold my legs up. The landing was not bad at all, fun actually. We were the second ones to land. We watched the girl, who I am assuming this was her first solo jump, crash land on the runway. The worst part was that the airplane we took off in was preparing to land. Luckily she was fine, and got off the runway just in time for the plane to land.
So my advice to you? Skydiving is something everyone needs to experience at least once! And you know what? If it wasn't such an expensive sport, you would see me up there quite often. Another piece of advice, there is no perfect timing for anything. If you want to do something, or start something, or be something. Now is the time. Enjoy life for what it is, and don't miss out on any lost opportunities.
