If there were one thing in life I would recommend everyone have to do it would be to experience a free fall/ skydiving.
Today at around 6:30am, Laurie, Kate, and I jumped tandem out of a plane from 14,000ft.
After a horrible night’s sleep, where I woke up more than once in a cold sweat (falling to my death dreams?) and the stripper’s sister started a fire in the backyard fire pit at 2:30am (long story but our room now smells like campfire) we got up at 5am for our 5:15 pick-up, but weren’t actually picked up until 5:30. When we were getting ready we asked Diva, still curled in a ball in the warmth of her bed (it was sooooooo cold this morning!), if she was going to come and she said no. But a few minutes waiting on the curb and she appeared, had changed her mind, and was ready to document our experience. The ride was short to Sky Dive Byron Bay’s air field about 10 minutes up the highway.
I was expecting some sort of classroom setting type crash course on what to do, but all we did was fill out some forms- forms that said be ready for close personal contact, people often get injured, you might die- were given dive pants and then strapped into a harness. Then our tandem partners came along and did up our harnesses and told us what was going to happen. First, before we leave the plane, I’ll be sitting on the edge and you’ll be hanging out the side, do this with your legs and put your head back and hold the harness with your hands. Then we’ll jump and when I tap your shoulders put your arms out and arch your back to make for a smoother free fall. Then after the parachute opens do this with your harness to make it more comfortable, and then when we land I’ll tell you to put your legs out straight and up and we’ll slide on to the ground. Uh, okay, okay, okay. Got it… I think?
Next we were whisked on to the plane, I think there were 8 of us on there, 3 pairs and 2 solos who were filming a few of the dives ($120 extra, no thanks). The ascent seemed to take a while and I was getting uncomfortable being crammed in there like a sardine. My partner kept asking if I was nervous because I kept moving my hands since I couldn’t find a good position for them. The view from the plane was incredible. We could see the whole bay and even as far as Surfer’s Paradise at one point. Once we’d reached 14,000ft and the correct GPS bearings the door was opened and people started jumping out. Since we were near the front of the plane and further from the door we were 2nd last to jump. The wait at the door I was anticipating didn’t happen, I was just scouted up and then tipped out. It was wild. I screamed at the beginning but quickly felt at ease and just enjoyed the view and the feeling of it. It is pretty much indescribable. The free fall was about 70seconds but felt longer. Near the end of the free fall the ground started to approach really fast and I started thinking “uh, why hasn’t he opened the chute yet?” But then I noticed the other divers below us had just pulled theirs and then ours was opened and it was about another 5 minutes of drifting to the ground and relatively uneventful landing (my partner kind of feel over me). After that we were unhooked from our partners, took off our harnesses and pants, and were given a certificate saying we did it.
Then we sat around for over an hour waiting for the shuttle back to town. So all that by 9am, not a bad way to start my week!
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