(Originally from March 19th!)
So, one of the things that has always simultaneous scared me and intrigued me the most is skydiving. When I was asked as a kid if I would ever do it, I usually gave a pretty adamant "no!"-- but always in the back of my mind was a secret yes. I was a bit less interested in the freefall and more in the parachute part, but the idea of jumping out of the plane seemed to be something so insane that no one would ever do it, and so I should.
And now I'm in New Zealand, the adventure capital of the world, so what the hell, am I right?
But, again, WEATHER LUCK! I booked five days ago when I had a slight idea of the weather, and today turned out to be the only sunny day this week! It was cloudy, so I wasn't going to be able to see the whole island, but I'd definitely get a good luck at the glaciers and the mountains.
I set out to drive the 30 minutes from Franz Josef to Fox at about 8AM, and got there in plenty of time to check in for my 9am jump. I actually park in town and then walked five minutes to the airfield down a dirt road next to some sheep-- not TOO confidence inducing (or, actually, I would have walked if a Skydive Fox van hadn't come by and picked me up halfway. :p) I didn't sleep well last night, but I figured a morning jump had to be better than an afternoon one, and I was actually much, much calmer then expected. I think I am definitely becoming a more "go with the flow, see what happens, nbd if you go splat into the Earth" type of lady. Or I'm just realizing that things that scare me aren't usually as scary as all that.
After checking in, we got all suited up in our sweet skydiving gear (jumpsuit, harness, hat and goggles, gloves) and met our tandem instructors. I got lucky again- my guy was a really sweet, hilarious, and handsome Argentinian named Mauro. I loved him on sight. The first thing he asked is if I was nervous, and I said yes, and he said "me too." HILARIOUS, MAURO. HI.LAR.IOUS. But really, he was very cognizant of how I was feeling and did his best to make sure I was comfortable. Thanks, Mauro!
Next we had a safety briefing, which mostly consisted of "listen to your instructor and do what he tells you." We were also told to jump in a "banana" position. Once we got dangled out of the plane, we'd put our legs back and our head on the instructor's shoulder, and only do a spread eagle when patted us on the shoulder to let us know it was okay. So then we were prepared to get on the plane, and I was ready! But we waited. And waited. A huge cloud had moved right over where the jumps are done, and they didn't want us to jump through it since we wouldn't see anything. (Also, I think, for safety reasons.) My jump was supposed to be at 9, but we didn't actually get off the ground until 10ish.
It turned out to be nice though, and not unbearably terrifying, because new people kept coming from later jumps, and a group of guys from Chicago was amongst them! They're going to grad school at Northwestern, so we chatted about that for awhile. It was strangely comforting to have fellow Chicagoans there. It was actually a very American heavy day- there was a father and son from Boston jumping at the same time as me, and a couple of women from Wyoming too. Also I got to ogle the instructors, who were all very handsome men. Other than Mauro there was also Emiliano, another beautiful Argentinian, and Paul the Kiwi, who looked a lot like Heath Ledger. So there was that.
Anyway, then Mauro opened the parachute and we slowed very quickly. I thought I'd feel like I'd been jerked back, but I suppose they put the harness on particularly well, because it didn't feel like that at all. Just like we were slowing down.
It didn't take as long as I expected for the parachute to get us down! It was pretty cool to see the guys below us coming in to land.
TRUEST OF ALL TRUE VICTORIES.