Two years ago, my friend Danny asked me if I wanted to go sky diving (tandem) with he and Brent. It was my year of “yes” so I said YES. Hang gliding was something I thought I wanted to do, but sky diving, not so much. For a variety of reasons it did not work out two years ago but it came around again about a month ago. Of course I couldn’t back out now. Craig had skydived in the military so tandem skydiving did not interest him. If he is going to sky dive, he wants to do a solo. The military jumps he did were at much lower altitude so this would be a much different experience – no back pack and weapon.
Two weeks ago, we set out to sky dive but the weather didi not cooperate. After waiting 4 plus hours for the clouds to lift we abandoned our attempt.. NO REFUNDS – just the opportunity to reschedule. We went Saturday. It happened fairly quickly so I didn’t really give it much thought beyond the weather looked good. I just prepared the way I had two weeks ago.
At no time during the entire process did I feel particularly nervous. Rationally, the instructor I was attached to with a very strong harness was very experienced. I knew they didn’t fly in potentially unsafe weather and while there is risk in any plane ride, I had accepted those risks a long time ago.
I gotI about 5 minutes of instructions as the harness was put on: once you get in the plane you sit on a bench backwards between your instructor’s legs. When we are near altitude, he attaches my harness to his. When it is our turn we slide up the bench, stand (in a crouch) and I slide my feet until they reach the edge, The instructor leans forward and you fall out of the plane. Once in the air, you hold the harness at the chest, raise chin and tilt pelvis forward and legs back (banana position). After a few seconds, instructor taps you on the shoulder and you can let arms out to sides and you simply free fall until parachute is deployed. We do a seated landing so my fears about impact on my knees went away. OK – sounded easy enough.
It was exactly that easy. While I was crouch waddling to the edge focusing on making sure my feet were at the edge (they apparently were) because the next thing I knew I was falling through the air from 12,500 feet. It was pretty cold in my T shirt but exhilarating and not at all scary. After what seemed like a long time I felt a jolt up as the parachute was deployed and we floated to a seated landing just like was described.
Getting ready
During and after
As we were free falling the instructor kept looking for me to give him a “thumbs up” so he would know I was OK. Once the parachute was deployed, we could chat. He let me steer it a bit. He asked me if I would do it again and I said I would with my partner. I found out that with Craig’s military experience, he would just have to do 2 tandem jumps and if all went well he would be cleared to do a solo without the usual weekend course.
I would do one more tandem with Craig but next I would prefer to try hang gliding.
My advice – if sky diving is on your bucket list, DO a tandem dive. NO FEAR is necessary.
Tamara Unleashed 