Queenstown Day #4

12/8/07

Today we went sky diving! It was so awesome! Paul has already done it once near Lake Anna in Virginia, but I had never done it before, so I was a little nervous. Strangely, once we got to the airfield and were getting suited up and everything, I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. They put you in this harness, and my sky dive trainer partner strapped me in really tight, so I felt very secure.

The plane we had to get in was really small. There are no seats, so we all just had to sit on the ground between the legs of our trainer partners. There were 4 of us going and each of us had a trainer partner, and I was getting videotaped, so there was another sky diver taping me, which made 9 of us in this tiny plane, and that’s all that would fit. As the plane was climbing higher and higher, my trainer was showing me how many thousands of feet we were in the air, and even 4,000 feet was really high! One of the guys was only jumping at 9,000 feet, so we let him out first, and I think that’s when I really started getting nervous :)

Since we were at such a high height, they gave us these small tubes for oxygen, in case we got dizzy. Paul didn’t hear what his trainer said about how to use it, so he put it in his mouth and started sucking the oxygen from it. His trainer looked at him a little funny, and then Paul looked at me and saw that I was holding it in front of my nose, not sucking on it with my mouth! :) So he realized that’s why his trainer was looking at him funny! And he proceeded to take it out of his mouth and hold it in front of his nose. Too funny. :)

Finally we got to 15,000 feet. There was one girl going out ahead of me and once she was out of the plane, my trainer pushed me forward really fast. Then my videotape diver went out and was holding onto the side of the plane waiting for us. Then we had to get ready to jump out. I had to sit on the edge and dangle my feet out, which were blowing completely sideways because of the wind! Then my trainer rocked me and him back and forth and then pushed us out of the plane.

It was really fast, and since I didn’t have any control over whether or not we jumped, it was easy. :) The first few seconds my stomach definitely dropped because of the acceleration, but once I got to terminal velocity, it was great. My helmet and goggles were coming off a little because of the wind, but other than that, it was awesome. The views were absolutely spectacular and the rush was amazing. My videotape guy took my hand and spun us around really fast. It was really cool. We haven’t been able to get the video in a format that we can upload to the internet yet, and the video won't do screen shots right, so I can't show you any pictures yet :(

After he pulled the parachute, he kept pulling on the chute left and right to spin us around really fast. My trainer let me help pull the chute, but he was pretty much doing all the work :) It really made my stomach jump because it makes you look straight down and it’s spinning you so fast. It was so cool!

When we landed, my trainer did everything for me, so all I had to do was lift my legs and then put them down once we hit the ground. I was glad I didn’t have to do anything except enjoy it. I’m so glad I did it, and Queenstown was definitely an awesome place to do it because of the mountain and lake views. What a great experience.

The rest of the day we just chilled out because the sky diving actually took a lot out of me. That was enough excitement and activity for the day for me. I can’t believe they do it 10-15 times a day! I guess you would get used to it though. Paul said it was just as awesome this time as it was the last time, and I can imagine it would be. I would definitely do it again. It sucks that it’s so expensive!