Murf: 12.000 - 0 feet in 10 minutes

WHOOOHOOOOO!

I've done it! My first skydive straight from 12.000 feet. (Round about 4000 meters.) After a very beautifull ride from Franz Josef to Fox by car we ended up at the airstrip an a small office where a small Cessna was waiting for me to take me up all the way to 12.000 feet. Some short instructions, emptying my pockets, tying my shoelaces, putting on a jumpsuit and taking out my camera's it was time to go. Sitting straight next to the door in the crampy Cessna (there where only 3 of us, my tandem-diver and another skydiver who went down on his own) we ran the runway and took off much faster than I expected. Looking at the altitude meter I saw it slowly going to 12.000 feet while I had the chance to take some pictures with my biggie-cam of the scenery. That already was worth it, snowy mountains, mount Cook and a beautifull view of the Fox Glacier. And then it was time to go. Got my goggles and hat strapped straight into my head, my small camera safely tucked away in my jumpsuit (I could take it down to take shots of the last phase while haning under the parachure.) The airplane went to a steady cruise speed, the door went open and we where there, at the edge of going down. Got my feet out who where straight blown away to the right side, the wingshots where taken with a big OK to the camera mounted on the wing, the airplane made a tilt to the right and off we went! Thoug people warned me that you wouldn't be able to breathe the first 20 seconds I didn't have any of that trouble. Accelerating to round about 200Km per hour we went straight down in a beatifull banana. Looked up to see the airplane dissapear very fast and enjoyed the awesome view and the feel of maximum speed. Indescribable what that does to you, you don't really have a feel of how fast you're falling but the wind blows around your ears, your hat feels like it's coming off and you're going down. But THAT is the thing you don't really realize. The ground is coming at you but it's going slow... I yelled out loud a big WHOOOHOOOO of excitenment. After a couple of seconds we met another stranger in the sky. That was the guy behind us who did a solo-jump! We shaked hands in the air while freefalling. AWESOME! Bet not many tandem-jumpers will have that experience on their way down... It's the same odd sensation you get when your SCUBA diving and suddenly meet other people down there. After a while you almost get used to it but it's strange.

After fully enjoying the 45 second freefall I felt some juggling behind me and suddenly **SNAP!**, a deceleration followed by an immense silence! The parachute was up 'n running and suddenly we where soaring in mid-air, slowly going down to mother earth. I could even talk to my instructor there. Took some pictures while soaring down under the parachute, got control of it for a couple of seconds, took some more pictures and way too soon it was time to lift my feet up in the air to prepare for the landing. On my BUTT! Feet up high and skidding over the grass we made contact with Mother Earth again. More shots of me, my instructor, the parachute, etc and we where off to go back to the airstrip, 7Km away from the dropzone. After getting my T-shirt (which says something like "12.000 feet, 200Km/h I had the attitude, they had the altitude, so I jumped.") and certificate (though credit-card sized I'll frame that with a couple of pictures at home) off to Ivory Towers Hostel in Fox.

And there I am. Had a late-breakfast, went to buy some souvenirs and back at the hostel now. Still completely floating and with the biggest smile you can imagine on my face. This is amazing. Just last week I realized that I was dreaming about skydiving since I was 8 and I still have the skydive-book I read to schreds somewhere in my collection. It's sacred now. I finally did it. Scary? Not at all. I got a tid bit nervous just before we reached 12.000 feet but that was about the same level as you get nervous when your bus is 5 minutes too late and you're not sure if you can make your next connection. And then way less. It was a nice tickling sense of nervousness. Nothing serious. Skydiving is not scary if you've ever flown in any airplane before, the altitude is way too high to have any sense of it. It's just a wonderfull sensation to suddenly jump out of it and plunge down to earth with a speed your own car even doesn't make. Followed by a really relaxed and quiet ride down under the parachute. Really, it costed me a whopping $325,- for the jump, the wing-photo's and the T-shirt but it was worth every single dollarcent of it! Still floating, still with my head up in the air, still completely thrilled and with wobbly knees... I hope part of this feeling will stick to me the rest of my life and if I have the chance to do it all again I'll definetely do it. It was wonderfull, way too short, I'd love to stay up there for hours but gravity is against you. What is really kinda odd is that the ground doesn't seem to come any closer, not during the freefall, not during the parachute-part of it. It's really when your butt hits the ground that you realize you're back again. It all seems to go so slow. It's just a 8 minute ride in total, 45 seconds freefall, 7 minutes under the parachute but it feels like hours and it's totally amazing.

But I was never really scared, just utterly excited. :-))

Murf | 08 Jun 2005 (Wed), 01:48 @ story