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A Day at the Skydive Ranch

We’ve all had conversations that eventually wind up with questions like, "Hey, would you ever try skydiving?" The answer is usually "No way!" or "Are you crazy?!!" But there are always a few who say, "Yeah, that’s something I’d love to do…one day." Well, I was one of those and after talking the talk for so long, I figured it was time to walk the walk, the day my friend organized a skydiving trip.

In the beginning, an instructor breezed through a 20-minute training class and said the jump would last a total of 60 seconds. He explained that we’d be jumping with an instructor attached to us, which is called a tandem jump. As he described the various hand motions, body positions and signals we were supposed to do at exact elevations, we tried desperately to memorize it all. It became quite stressful as we worried about how we’d remember everything while falling at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour (125 miles per hour)!!! Later, we heard that first-time jumpers often forget everything they learned, the moment they peek out the hatch of the plane. In this case, with an instructor glued to your back, you can still make a perfectly safe jump.

Soon it was time to put on our equipment and board the plane. As our group sat down, intertwined on the plane floor, I paused for a reality check and asked myself, "Is this what I really wanted to do?!!!" As the plane took off, my eyes skimmed the group and stopped at my fiancé, in front of me. For a short moment, all sorts of "what ifs" entered my mind. The plane climbed higher and higher and looking out the window, I became conscious of the fact that in just minutes, my life could change. Flying!

I watched the altimeter on my wrist rise to 13,500 feet, which meant it was time to go. My instructor said, "We’re up!" I gulped. My smiling face turned serious and before I knew it, I was standing at the edge of the open hatch. Whoooaaaa!!!!! We flipped out of the plane in a backwards somersault* and immediately plunged downward! My heartbeat was keeping pace with the clouds that seemed to be rushing at us like bullets out of a machine gun. Aaahhhh!!! My mind was screaming! Aaaahhh!!! Some primal instinct I never knew I possessed was telling me something was terribly wrong! We spun around in circles for a while, until suddenly, floating a few feet away from my face was our videographer, trying to get a good shot of us. Apparently, after all that violent activity, my goggles were sitting almost vertically across my face. It wasn’t pretty, but that is a whole other story. Everything happened so fast. At 6,000 feet, I pulled the ripcord. Wow. I felt like a cork flying out of a bottle of champagne! In reality our bodies had just gone from a speed of over 160 kph (100 mph) to about 32 kph (20 mph) within a matter of seconds.

We were in a massive cloud, and began to descend at a much slower speed. Gradually, the bright blue sky was revealed. This was good. I was still alive. Whew! From then on it was heavenly, with the parachute fully extended, we floated down, taking in miles of fall scenery below. I felt completely relaxed, listening to the wind and feeling like a bird. We spent the rest of the day recalling the fun and planning our next jump in the spring.