Skydiving: Take 2

August 18 - the day we'd been waiting for, but partly hoping would never come in fear of not having the guts to actually embark on the skydiving adventure again. Nervous? Um, a little ...

Saturday was a beautiful day. Bright and sunny, not a dark cloud (or really any clouds to speak of) in the sky. Perfect. Ben, Katie, Katie, and I left at 6:30am, and headed down to West Point VA ... back to the lovely airport hangar that we spent so much time at a mere six weeks ago. We ran into a bit of traffic, so didn't quite make it there on time, which meant that other people were in front of us in line for the planes. And so we began to wait. We had our mini orientation again with Mario, and then waited around until the plane had been up and back with a couple loads of people.

Katie H. & Ben were first - they suited up, harnessed in, and walked onto the airplane. Meanwhile, Katie B. and I suited up, harnessed in, and waited for them to arrive.

About 15 minutes later, down they came in the sky with their parachutes, and Katie and I were off with our instructors into the little airplane, after Ben & Katie giving us the thumb's up go-ahead.

I'd taken some dramamine, in hopes of staving off any potential motion sickness. I'm not sure if it was that, or just the smooth ride, but I didn't feel anything on that little airplane other than the fact that it was really hot. We climbed up to 14,000 feet, which is where we jumped from. We were seatbelted in, and at about 5,000 feet, John (my instructor) strapped himself to my harnesses so we were connected. When we got to our altitude, we scooted down the bench and to the door.

We were the last ones off the plane because of how we were seated, but that was nice since I was able to watch everyone else out of the plane. It wasn't really a jump, but more like a roll out of the plane, since it was so small there is no way you could have stood up in it anyway. Ready or not ... here you go ... I actually wasn't as scared as I'd anticipated being. It was awesome. Amazingly, it didn't even feel like you were falling - it felt more like floating, even though you are freefalling at 120 MPH. The only thing I really remember feeling was that my mouth (which was wide open) was really dry because of all the air rushing through.
It was kind of hard to come up with things to do for the camera man ...

After the parachute opened up (at about 5500 ft), it was a bit boring coming down. We did some turns, but luckily not too many since I probably would have gotten sick. It was a perfectly clear day though, and pretty awesome to be in the air like that.We had a smooth landing, and Ben said that after that, I kind of strutted back in ... I still maintain that it was because it was a bit hard to walk with those harnesses between my legs!

All in all, it was a great experience. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thrill, but something I am glad I can say I have done. My ears, on the other hand, may beg to differ. I think the combination of the sudden pressure changes coupled with the pummeling by waves at Virginia Beach afterward did a number on them ... hopefully that goes away soon! I'm glad that I have some friends who are just as crazy as I sometimes like to think I am that will do things like this :)

p.s. As soon as I get the link to my video online, I'll post it in case anyone is interested in watching the live footage!