It all started with an innocent email….”want to go tandem skydiving, they’re having a special”
Sure, why not?
I don’t have a list of things to do before I die . Things just come to me in time. And it just felt like it was time. Friends had gone in the past, and I just wasn't that interested.
Since the site was so far away, I decided to carpool with friends, one of which was learning how to free fall on his own. This meant we had to be there before 8am, since he had a 4-hour class. So backing up and doing all the math, this meant I had to get up at 4:45am. Why I can do this with ease on a weekend and not on a weekday still eludes me. But I got up in time, and even had time to water the plants before we headed out to Lake Perris.
We were the FIRST PEOPLE there. It was cloudy and foggy, and at one point I doubted we’d even fly. But I figured I could do the indoor training, and come back another time. We checked in, paid the balances, and basically signed our lives away. Which made me feel a little guilty, because while I had told some of my friends about the jump, I never told my family. It was still the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, so I had to wait a few hours before I called my next of kin, aka my sister, to let her know of my plans.
We had some time to kill before we did the indoor simulator, and I was a little nervous and a little car sick from the drive, but I had to eat something. So Powtawche and I talked for a while as we ate breakfast. Then we walked around and took photos of folks who were doing the first flight of the day. A few of the others who were also doing tandem jumping joined us in time to hit the simulator.
More forms to fill out, then we had a real drill sergeant for an instructor. We were basically about to be blown upwards by a huge huge blast of wind. We had to learn the proper technique not to go barreling into the walls or into a death spin. Nothing like learning all of this while being glared at by an ex-cop. I was dying to say “you can take the man off the police force, but you can’t take the police force out of the man”, but he kept giving me the evil eye. Then asked us all to smile…wtf?
But anyways, enough about him (he pissed me off later at the end when he pointed out I had split ends…I swear, I need to be faster on the uptake with comments like that, but that was just so out of left field that I had no response other than “Um, I know”. How rude!). We learned the hand signals and the proper form, practicing on the table in the “classroom”, then suited up and went in one by one into the chamber.
Wow…that was amazing. Defying gravity. He told us there was no reason to look down, which of course makes you want to look down, but I never did. In his defense, he was a great teacher and the 65 seconds times two we spent inside the chamber were pretty cool. It was very hard to breathe, and he told us to breathe out of our noses. This one advice and experience was for me the most important thing, I think, for what was to come later.
Well, done with that, we had to wait for our friend Orlando to finish his free fall training. The guys who had just arrived went to fill out their paperwork, and we hung out at the pool. There was a section of covered tables next to it, which made it tolerable in the heat. The clouds were slowly burning off, and the day was looking more promising.
We hung out, chatted, snacked, and it was a nice afternoon. There were two relatively new hires with us, who I didn’t really know before Saturday, so it was very nice to get to know them better. My excitement, however, was waning during the wait, and I was getting very sleepy. We finally texted Orlando to see what was up, and found out he’d be done after 2.
So, more waiting after he was done, my fault this time—I wanted the pro video package, and they needed the bigger plane so they could take up the videographer. We finally settled in to watch folks jump out of planes waaay way above us when we got the call…we were next! FINALLY.
We went to suit up and meet our tandem instructors. The instructions were pretty easy, the suits less than flattering,and I was getting excited again. Also a little nervous, finally. It was damned cool walking around with a flight suit on. We headed for the plane and piled in. It was the first place we’d seen that morning, which almost wiped out a PT Cruiser on the runway.
And we were off!
I’ll admit it. I thought about chickening out for 3 seconds. Pride wouldn’t let me do it. It was kinda hot and stuffy in the plane, which was making me feel worse. I figured it’d be much better if I jumped outside, and I’d paid. No turning back!
Went to the door after Powtawche went-- kneeled at the door, and WENT! Woo! I hit the form immediately and lost my breath. In all actuality, it was more like falling out, I didn’t really “jump”. That’s perfectly okay.
But like I said, the air hitting me was exactly like the simulator, except harder. And they were right, you didn’t really get the sensation of falling, just speeding somewhere. In this case, down. My main concerns were breathing and keeping the form. And looking like I was having fun for the video. Hah! I finally realized that I couldn’t breathe out through my nose, except very shallow breaths. But I could breath out through my mouth. Problem solved. I could smile and wave at the camera dude. Panic gone.
I was so focused on breathing that yes, I forgot to look at the altimeter (which is a shame, I love gadgets so) or pull the rip cord. That’s why you have an instructor. And the jerk up didn’t feel anything like what it looks like on videos. It was like a gentle brake.
The wind stopped rushing and it all became a gentle, quiet, beautiful drift down to land. And it hit me why folks do this. It was so pretty. There were still some cloud cover, especially around the mountains. Karen pointed out all the surrounding peaks, our drop site, and the freeways. She also adjusted the straps to assist with the landing. It would have been nice to stay up there much longer, but you know gravity.
I’d seen the solo folks come in for landings, and they seemed pretty scary. Fortunately, I didn’t see anyone eat any landings. The tandem landings were easier; the students just had to pull their legs up and sit down. So that’s what I did. Slid in like nothing to it. Woohoo!
We were ridiculously excited upon landing. Is this how it feels to cheat death? We swaggered back to the suit-up site to peel them off and thank our instructors. I felt envious of the newbies who were suiting up to go. Then we went to the trailer to check out our videos. Not bad! One of the guys actually rolled a few times upon exiting the plane…I’m not sure if that was planned or not, but it looked pretty cool.
I’ll do it again someday.