Skydiving!
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2007
1
29
48
Trip End
Feb 25, 2007
Airlie Beach,
Australia
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I was suited up and went through my safety training in about 15 minutes, before me and my tandem-diver got aboard the plane for take off. He had done over 20,000 dives and looked like he'd survived all of them, so I felt reassured. I wasn't too nervous until the plane door came open at 14,000ft and I was told to edge my way towards it and dangle my feet out. All of this seemed so wrong and massive panic was setting in. However, before I had a chance to think about turning back, my tandem diver had pushed us both out, and we were somersaulting through the air at a rapidly increasing speed and plummeting to earth
Kitted out
. After a few seconds of plane-land-plane-land-sky-land, we stabalised into descent of about 40 seconds, when, apart from being unable to breathe and hearing nothing but rushing wind, it all seemed quite surreal, as if we weren't plummeting at 300mph at all! Before I knew it, we were heading straight for a cloud and as we went through it, my tandem diver opened the chute, and I felt like I was being pulled upwards with massive force.
After that, we were gliding gently to the ground, and the vertigo really kicked in, as it felt like these small straps were holding me up over 5000 feet, and would give at any moment! Luckily we descended safely into ground for a very soft landing!
Even now, 5 days later, I'm still buzzing about it and it makes me smile every time I think about it. I would recommend anyone who is thinking about doing this to go ahead and do it as it's the most thrilling experience I've ever undertaken!
