Skydiving: cross that off the bucket list.
I went skydiving this morning Sunday morning (since I couldn't actually write this up in one afternoon due to post traumatic shock xD;).
It was probably the most intense thing I have ever done in my life. I had to make sure I didn't think about it too much though, otherwise I would start freaking out. When I went to the info/sign up meeting about ten days ago, they kept showing videos of skydivers and I could practically FEEL my blood pressure rising. My palms were sweating and I must have looked like a dear in highlights, but I still signed up for it. Afraid of heights and all, but a glutton for punishment.
I had hoped to go yesterday, sometime Saturday afternoon but that didn't work out (and lucky that I didn't because I was trying to watch Merlin with stubbel most of yesterday afternoon). Which meant that instead I would be picked up this morning at 7:15am in the parking lot just down from my residence hall. Because my sleeping patterns are all screwed up right now I was actually able to get a few hours of sleep before I had to get up (D: at 6:30! DD:). I made sure to rug up though because it was COLD (as in, 44F and 6C freezing-your-arse-off-cold). I arrived a little early, around 7am and thought two other people that were in the parking lot at that time must have been James - my ride. But no, apparently there are people that are just crazy and want to be awake this early on a Sunday. o_O;
The drive out there was interesting. James kept telling us stories about Skydiving and that he has done about 60 jumps and most of those were over the summer (he's in his second year of skydiving now, I believe). He just puts at lot of his spending money into skydiving, with the rest going to his tuition XD; Kaleb though, the club's president, joined around the same time and has over 600 jumps under his belt though, which is insane. He was telling us about a few of them after the jump, and he said that the coolest jump he's ever made was when he dove through a tunnel in a storm cloud and his shadow was actually a rainbow while he was going through the storm cloud (because of the way light fractures in the cloud). He was like "THAT IS SO COOL!" and I have to admit, I'd love to be able to get to that kind of skydiving level!! ^^;;
Anyway, when I actually got there we had to check-in and get our names marked off the list of people that had signed up to go skydiving. Then we had to wait around until we could watch the video of Import and sign our waivers. I had brought my schoolwork with me but I really had no hope of trying to get anywhere with that. Eventually we got into the room and one of the intructors stood up in front of everyone and told us what they wanted us to do. We had to assume the position of a badminton ball, so that our hips were thrust out and arms hanging out behind us and legs tucked up between our tandem instructors legs. He got us to get on the floor and practice, which is probably a good thing because it meant that you weren't having to do it for the first time when you actually threw yourself out of the plane (and your brain short circuited because OMFGOD FALLING TO THE GROUND). We had to do another exercise while sitting on the floor, this time with our legs stretched out, but I can't remember what the importance of that was. In any case, we then got given our waivers and the Bearded Man video played (this guy with an insanely long, hick-style beard was talking about the dangers of skydiving). That really wasn't the most reassuring thing to hear when you are about to chuck yourself out of a plane, but whatever. I only half listened cause I was actually reading through what I was signing my life over too (essentially, that if I broke my legs on landing, that my insurance would not cover that cost. SO DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!)
The three girls that I had come with went with the second group of students, and I went with the group that was directly after that (because of some mix-up/change with the pairing of instructors). Having to wait around was insanely nerve-racking, but I tried not to think about it too much. Hell, just thinking about it now as I type this, my palms are sweating up and my heart is starting to race. ;LAJG;LAJFLG;AJDF why yes, I am crazy, why do you ask? XD;
Anyway, Byron was my instructor and he came over to help me get suited up and also helped another guy get suited up at the same time, because apparently he had to do two jumps, one after the other? They were low on instructors, or something IDK. I got into my blue-badass suit that was supposed to protect me from the harness, I suppose, because it most certainly didn't protect me from the cold. The harness gave him a little trouble getting on though, because he had to keep undoing and redoing and changing the straps. And then he asked if my legs were too tight and they were, so he had to loosen them and redo them. >_>;;
EVENTUALLY though, I was in my suit and in my harness and feeling not very confident because I felt like I was falling out of my harness but "that's exactly how it was supposed to feel". Not something that invites confidence, I'm just saying. I went out to 'chill' and watch the guys that were currently jumping parachute down and really, that may not have been the best idea. I was still trying really hard not to think about it, because I did not want to get into the plane and freak out. I even said as much to Byron as he was suiting me up. He was a little concerned and kept checking in, but I would reassure him that I was fine (and it wasn't a total lie - I was handling it better than I had expected XD). When he came over to tell us to go over to the plane though, I took some photos of it and how fucking tiny the plane was and OMFGOD IT IS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME. Couldn't stop myself from stating "fuck my life." because CLEARLY I am a retard that just likes to punish herself by doing STUPID THINGS like JUMPING OUT OF AEROPLANES. A;LKGJAL;GJA;LGJA;L
This concerned Byron and he asked me 'why' and I told him about my height fear but said "I'm ok, really. I'll be alright until I get in the plane, I bet".
We had to wait around for the one last instructor to come back, because he ran off to the toilet while he thought one of the pilots was having a smoke. DAMN WAITING AROUND! After entirely too long, he turned back up (and it was so weird because this guy reminds me a lot of Chris, the guy that I worked with in Scotland and was my guide for Canyoning - another crazy thing I did in my life). Anyway, now I had to board the plane - Byron and someone else both told me to watch my head as I entered the plane (after Byron) because 'a lot of people like to clock their head on this part *pats roof of plane*'. I managed to not hit my head, thanks to their good advice, and settled onto this tiny fucking cushion thing that was as long as the plane but about as big as thigh, and I had to scoot back so that I was almost sitting in Byron's lap. Then Chris-Look-Alike was almost sitting in my lap and squashing my leg up against the plane wall, which meant when I tried to move it, I ended up resting my foot on top of Byron's because I didn't realise it was there. IDK OK, MY MIND WAS ELSEWHERE.
I made sure to take heaps of photographs of the take off and climb up to the jumping height. It helped keep my mind off what I was about to do. It didn't help though that as soon as I would put it away (aka, down my jumpsuit and zip myself up properly again) I would start thinking about the fact that I was now 4000 FEET IN THE AIR AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE FUCKING WAY DOWN. All I could think was "I really wish I had taken the time to update my facebook status this morning to say 'if you don't hear from me, it's because I died. Someone please tell my family that I love them and my sister gets everything' (or something to that effect - I would come up with a different way of saying it every other minute). But by the time we got to 10,000 feet, I had kind of talked myself into the stage of "well, whether I jump at 4,000 or 10,000 feet, I'll still be dead if I hit the ground!" which meant that I calmed down or my brain switched off enough so that I could function without freezing up and freaking out.
Somewhere in the climb up to the jumping height, Byron had me scout back until I was actually sitting in his lap so that he could attach himself to me. This was when he tightened the harness enough so that it felt like it was properly attached to me and when he told me to try and sit back down in the seat, I didn't get very far. It definitely helped make me feel better, because it meant that I would be attached to this here guy, who has lots of diving experience, and will try his best to make sure we don't get killed. Also, while on the way up, one of the other instructors (or maybe it was the camera man?) had a packet of chewable soup things that he offered to everyone, and I am really glad that I took one. It's not like it really helped soothe my anxiety, but it did help keep my mind off the jump for about five seconds. LOL I remember thinking 'wow, this tastes really nice!' so obviously my brain hadn't completely disconnected for fear.
Just before they were going to open the doors, Byron thankfully went through the proceedure of what I had to do again (they went through it on the ground and he said it at some point on the way up, but I honestly had no hope in hell of remembering anything that wasn't about to directly affect me). When they opened the doors, the first people to jump where the more experienced divers, followed by the tandem jumpers that were in the front of the plane. Then we had to scoot down to the doors and had to sit on the edge of the plane, legs dangling out while I tilted my head back onto his shoulder, and he was the one that pushed us off. I am so fucking glad that I had to lean back against him, because there was no fucking way I would have been able to throw myself out of that plane. I took long look when I had to sit down and even though I nearly had a heart attack, my fear levels definitely would have made it impossible for me to jump. So I am thankful that Byron had to be the one to make us jump.
And then I was free-falling.
Holy fucking shit, there are no words for how intense it is. Seriously, I felt like my face was trying to rip itself from my skull, just trying to turn my head so that I could get a look of my surroundings (something one of the instructors advised us to do - don't just stare at the ground! Take a good look around!) was extremely difficult because of the wind resistance. The weird thing is that even though I remember quite a lot of what happened at the time, after I got back on the ground, the intensity of the whole thing kind of overwhelmed me and I kind of blacked out everything from the moment I started falling until after I got on the ground. It wasn't until I started talking with some of the others that it came back to me and I began to remember exactly how it felt to jump.
The first thing I noticed is that I couldn't scream. I don't know if I had wanted to (but its usually my first instinct when I'm falling), but I couldn't because the air is pretty much forcing itself down your throat, and nothing is going get past that. I think I had a split second flash back to my CA telling me that her friend who also went skydiving said the same thing and I was like "huh, so she was right about not being able to scream" LOL my attention span, I don't even.
The next thing I noticed was that my ears hurt like a bitch. I had to pop them and I can't remember how I did that. I think I must have swallowed and that cleared it up, because I don't think I got to hold my nose ... but I may have and I just can't remember. This was one of those things that I remembered once I got to the ground, because everyone else had the same thing. I'm not surprised, if you drop that quickly from 13,000 feet!
I also remember feeling the skin on my face try to peel itself off - I swear to god that's what it felt like. It was so strange, I guess if your skin was like water and was stuck in front of a fan, you would get the same feeling. And when I turned my head to look over to my right and then to my left, my cheekbone facing the ground would get smushed further into my mouth, whereas the other one would be floating off my face. LOL I bet it would look ridiculous, my mouth contorted like that. But because my mouth was open for most of the time - I think I tried to close it at one point, but the wind forced it open again - about halfway through the freefall I noticed that my mouth was insanely dry. I'm talking like when you are sick as a dog and just after you wake up, there is no moisture in your mouth and you feel like your tongue and everything is like sandpaper. I did try to swallow and get some moisture into my mouth, but there really wasn't any point because within 2 seconds it was gone again. But you know, not really thinking when falling at the speed of gravity. Though I somehow managed to switch on my brain and force my hips out like I was supposed to.
After about five seconds, Byron tapped me on the shoulder to signal that I could hold my arms out. My god, as soon as I let go of the straps on my shoulders and extended them the slightest bit, they snapped back as far as they could go. I remember the instantaneous "holyfuckingshit!" before concentrating on the fact that I was getting a bird's eye view of the earth and taking full advantage of that. By the way - 55seconds of free fall is a fucking long time. I do remember by the end of it I was like 'HOW IS IT NOT A MINUTE YET?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!' because the dry throat and the roaring in my ears and pressure on everything was overloading my brain. I was very thankful for my goggles, since I reckon my eyeballs would have popped out of their sockets, let's just put it that way.
Then Byron pulled the 'shute and did everything that he was supposed to on the way down. I left it in his capable hands - not that I had much choice - but I know that he had to do this thing here he dropped me slightly in the harness so that I sat better in proportion to him. Thankfully, I didn't really feel it (I know that he did it because he was fiddling with straps and I'm pretty sure there was a moment when I felt a shift, but it was nothing substantial). I think if I had felt that drop though, I would have fucking lost my mind. But because the wind was still trying to lift you up and keep you going every which way, thankfully I barely noticed it.
Once I could breathe talk again, I let out a gaspy, raspy "can I take my camera out now?" and he said yes and then proceeded to direct me in taking pictures. I'm kind of glad that he did though, because my brain = ded right about then. I took pictures of the ground on my own (first thing I thought of to do), but then he told me to take pictures of my feet and then angle the camera up so that I take a picture of us from my stomach and then from out in front. Then he told me to turn on the video and I didn't actually know what he was planning, but he pulled down on one of the handles so that the parachute would turn us in a circle. I think he did it so we spun to the right first and then to the left (after he stabilised as from the right turn, I thought he was done and went to turn the camera to the ground to film us coming down, but he told me to keep the camera on us and that's when he started us in the left-spin). I remember which was first because the first thing that comes to mind from the spinning is the pain. Because of how the harness was strapped to my thighs, when we would circle in the air, in good ol' fashion Newton's law, the pressure had to be applied somewhere, and that just so happened to be my thigh. Not that I'm complaining, by any means. It was almost a good thing, because the pain kind of drew me out of the dazed state that I was in. Seriously - my right thigh didn't hurt nearly as much because I was so out of it that I only really registered what was going on in the last couple of seconds. And the he stopped turning us, and I had the delayed 'OMG WE JUST SPUN IN THE AIR!! THAT'S SO AWESOME!' reaction. But then he turned us to the left and that's when I felt the sting in my thigh and it almost went on too long to bear - right near the end I was thinking "okokok, I'm good with the circling! I'm in paaaaaaaaaain!" At the same time though I was elated and high off adrenaline. I remember thinking "FUCK YEA~~~!!!!!" and laughing/smiling a lot. Byron did ask if all was well and I mentioned the pain factor (because when he stopped all the spinning around, my legs were angled sort of weirdly), and they were pushed back still (as though I was still trying to stick my hips out as in freefall). So he said to try and lift my legs up 'to take some of the pressure off' and that helped heaps.
Then suddenly, the ground was approaching rather quickly and Byron was telling me that he was going to guide us down to where the plane just landed (lol me, I was all "are we going to land where the plane just landed" OMG STUPID QUESTION IS STUPID). And then it seemed like we landed insanely quickly - all of a sudden I could see the strip we were supposed to land on and then, next second, we had landed! I had stuffed my camera back into my jumpsuit and had grabbed the sides of my jumpsuit (they had this little rubber thing attached to the outside of my legs) to help pull my legs up to make sure that I would slide into the ground on my butt. I think I pretty much landed in Byron's lap because I didn't really feel much pain in my arse from landing on the ground, and I don't think I used the heels of my feet at all to help cushion/soften the blow (though I definitely don't think my arse was the first thing to hit the ground). He unhooked me right away and then told me I was free to stand up. LOL that was like asking for the world, but I managed to roll myself off him and used my hands to help push myself to stand up. How I managed to actually stand up, I'll never know, but I definitely took awhile to regain my balance fully. I kind of stumbled in a circle in the process of getting up XDD;;
I turned around to shake Byron's hand and say thank you and said that I would wait around so that I could sign his logbook. He said that the girls/guys inside would take care of me (I presume he meant getting out of my suit), so that's where I headed first. And an interesting tidbit here - the first thing my brain registered after I realised I was back on the ground was that my hands were tingling. They were warming up from having gone numb during the fall, and I hadn't really noticed until I got back to the warmer ground. YET! It was freezing on the ground! Then when I went inside to see what the deal was RE getting my stuff off, it was even warmer and that was what kind of brought my brain back into existence. LOL the cold froze it to death xD; but nothing seemed to be going on inside so I went back outside and talked with the two students that went diving in my group. They were asking about things that we felt/experienced while we were up there (like our ears needing popping and our faces wanting to peel off) and that was when I realised that I had tried to register as much as I could, but the huge amount of adrenaline just caused me to totally blank after I landed. LOL.
When the next group came back down and Byron was now free to help us get out of our suits and hand me my Certificate of Achievement for Skydiving, before getting me to sign his logbook. I did so (I believe I took pictures of this whole process, but I'm too lazy too check xD) and then handed the logbook over to the other guy that also jumped with him. I went outside to talk with the group of girls that I drove out with (James was also there) and we talked about skydiving some more. James brought up the fact that people do die doing skydiving, but they are usually people trying to learn how to get to be an experienced level Jumper. He told us a few horror stories about one lady who died because she jumped out and when she went to deploy her shute, the lines got tangled in her foot and she spent the rest of the time fiddling with it and trying to untangle it (instead of just cutting it lose and deploying her reserve). Even just before she hit the ground she was still trying to untangle the cords around her feet, and another skydiver witnessed this. This was back before the automatic reserve thing was installed, and it actually saved this woman's life later when she had a problem when she deployed her shute and it got tangled in her braids and was trying to rip her skull off. She couldn't cut it away, but when the reserve automatically went off it ended up fixing everything or something, and it saved her life. So she's a big advocate of that automatic reserve system.
James wanted to do some diving that day but ended up leaving around midday without doing any jumps (I really had to get back in time for Quidditch, so I was adamant that I wanted to be back by 2pm), which we all felt bad about. He was really good about it and just said that the club at the moment was a small group of people that were just really enthusiastically trying to get people interested and would just basically sacrifice their free time to shuttle people back and forth and give their time to volunteer to help the skydiving centre out. It was pretty amazing to hear, and I feel for them. The University of Minnesota doesn't give them any kind of support, which is a big blow to the club. But fingers crossed that will change in the future.
Anyway, we got back and I really don't know if it has still settled in. I went to Quidditch and told everyone on my team and was all "I CONQUERED THE SKIES TODAY, THEREFORE WE WILL WIN!" yea, like that would happen but I really think my body is in some kind detachment from the whole thing. Typing this up though gave me a bit of a 'I AM SUCH A BATSHIT CRAZY PERSON' freak out, but I definitely handled the whole thing a lot better than I thought I did. I'm looking forward to doing it again!! 8DDD
It was probably the most intense thing I have ever done in my life. I had to make sure I didn't think about it too much though, otherwise I would start freaking out. When I went to the info/sign up meeting about ten days ago, they kept showing videos of skydivers and I could practically FEEL my blood pressure rising. My palms were sweating and I must have looked like a dear in highlights, but I still signed up for it. Afraid of heights and all, but a glutton for punishment.
I had hoped to go yesterday, sometime Saturday afternoon but that didn't work out (and lucky that I didn't because I was trying to watch Merlin with stubbel most of yesterday afternoon). Which meant that instead I would be picked up this morning at 7:15am in the parking lot just down from my residence hall. Because my sleeping patterns are all screwed up right now I was actually able to get a few hours of sleep before I had to get up (D: at 6:30! DD:). I made sure to rug up though because it was COLD (as in, 44F and 6C freezing-your-arse-off-cold). I arrived a little early, around 7am and thought two other people that were in the parking lot at that time must have been James - my ride. But no, apparently there are people that are just crazy and want to be awake this early on a Sunday. o_O;
The drive out there was interesting. James kept telling us stories about Skydiving and that he has done about 60 jumps and most of those were over the summer (he's in his second year of skydiving now, I believe). He just puts at lot of his spending money into skydiving, with the rest going to his tuition XD; Kaleb though, the club's president, joined around the same time and has over 600 jumps under his belt though, which is insane. He was telling us about a few of them after the jump, and he said that the coolest jump he's ever made was when he dove through a tunnel in a storm cloud and his shadow was actually a rainbow while he was going through the storm cloud (because of the way light fractures in the cloud). He was like "THAT IS SO COOL!" and I have to admit, I'd love to be able to get to that kind of skydiving level!! ^^;;
Anyway, when I actually got there we had to check-in and get our names marked off the list of people that had signed up to go skydiving. Then we had to wait around until we could watch the video of Import and sign our waivers. I had brought my schoolwork with me but I really had no hope of trying to get anywhere with that. Eventually we got into the room and one of the intructors stood up in front of everyone and told us what they wanted us to do. We had to assume the position of a badminton ball, so that our hips were thrust out and arms hanging out behind us and legs tucked up between our tandem instructors legs. He got us to get on the floor and practice, which is probably a good thing because it meant that you weren't having to do it for the first time when you actually threw yourself out of the plane (and your brain short circuited because OMFGOD FALLING TO THE GROUND). We had to do another exercise while sitting on the floor, this time with our legs stretched out, but I can't remember what the importance of that was. In any case, we then got given our waivers and the Bearded Man video played (this guy with an insanely long, hick-style beard was talking about the dangers of skydiving). That really wasn't the most reassuring thing to hear when you are about to chuck yourself out of a plane, but whatever. I only half listened cause I was actually reading through what I was signing my life over too (essentially, that if I broke my legs on landing, that my insurance would not cover that cost. SO DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!)
The three girls that I had come with went with the second group of students, and I went with the group that was directly after that (because of some mix-up/change with the pairing of instructors). Having to wait around was insanely nerve-racking, but I tried not to think about it too much. Hell, just thinking about it now as I type this, my palms are sweating up and my heart is starting to race. ;LAJG;LAJFLG;AJDF why yes, I am crazy, why do you ask? XD;
Anyway, Byron was my instructor and he came over to help me get suited up and also helped another guy get suited up at the same time, because apparently he had to do two jumps, one after the other? They were low on instructors, or something IDK. I got into my blue-badass suit that was supposed to protect me from the harness, I suppose, because it most certainly didn't protect me from the cold. The harness gave him a little trouble getting on though, because he had to keep undoing and redoing and changing the straps. And then he asked if my legs were too tight and they were, so he had to loosen them and redo them. >_>;;
EVENTUALLY though, I was in my suit and in my harness and feeling not very confident because I felt like I was falling out of my harness but "that's exactly how it was supposed to feel". Not something that invites confidence, I'm just saying. I went out to 'chill' and watch the guys that were currently jumping parachute down and really, that may not have been the best idea. I was still trying really hard not to think about it, because I did not want to get into the plane and freak out. I even said as much to Byron as he was suiting me up. He was a little concerned and kept checking in, but I would reassure him that I was fine (and it wasn't a total lie - I was handling it better than I had expected XD). When he came over to tell us to go over to the plane though, I took some photos of it and how fucking tiny the plane was and OMFGOD IT IS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME. Couldn't stop myself from stating "fuck my life." because CLEARLY I am a retard that just likes to punish herself by doing STUPID THINGS like JUMPING OUT OF AEROPLANES. A;LKGJAL;GJA;LGJA;L
This concerned Byron and he asked me 'why' and I told him about my height fear but said "I'm ok, really. I'll be alright until I get in the plane, I bet".
We had to wait around for the one last instructor to come back, because he ran off to the toilet while he thought one of the pilots was having a smoke. DAMN WAITING AROUND! After entirely too long, he turned back up (and it was so weird because this guy reminds me a lot of Chris, the guy that I worked with in Scotland and was my guide for Canyoning - another crazy thing I did in my life). Anyway, now I had to board the plane - Byron and someone else both told me to watch my head as I entered the plane (after Byron) because 'a lot of people like to clock their head on this part *pats roof of plane*'. I managed to not hit my head, thanks to their good advice, and settled onto this tiny fucking cushion thing that was as long as the plane but about as big as thigh, and I had to scoot back so that I was almost sitting in Byron's lap. Then Chris-Look-Alike was almost sitting in my lap and squashing my leg up against the plane wall, which meant when I tried to move it, I ended up resting my foot on top of Byron's because I didn't realise it was there. IDK OK, MY MIND WAS ELSEWHERE.
I made sure to take heaps of photographs of the take off and climb up to the jumping height. It helped keep my mind off what I was about to do. It didn't help though that as soon as I would put it away (aka, down my jumpsuit and zip myself up properly again) I would start thinking about the fact that I was now 4000 FEET IN THE AIR AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE FUCKING WAY DOWN. All I could think was "I really wish I had taken the time to update my facebook status this morning to say 'if you don't hear from me, it's because I died. Someone please tell my family that I love them and my sister gets everything' (or something to that effect - I would come up with a different way of saying it every other minute). But by the time we got to 10,000 feet, I had kind of talked myself into the stage of "well, whether I jump at 4,000 or 10,000 feet, I'll still be dead if I hit the ground!" which meant that I calmed down or my brain switched off enough so that I could function without freezing up and freaking out.
Somewhere in the climb up to the jumping height, Byron had me scout back until I was actually sitting in his lap so that he could attach himself to me. This was when he tightened the harness enough so that it felt like it was properly attached to me and when he told me to try and sit back down in the seat, I didn't get very far. It definitely helped make me feel better, because it meant that I would be attached to this here guy, who has lots of diving experience, and will try his best to make sure we don't get killed. Also, while on the way up, one of the other instructors (or maybe it was the camera man?) had a packet of chewable soup things that he offered to everyone, and I am really glad that I took one. It's not like it really helped soothe my anxiety, but it did help keep my mind off the jump for about five seconds. LOL I remember thinking 'wow, this tastes really nice!' so obviously my brain hadn't completely disconnected for fear.
Just before they were going to open the doors, Byron thankfully went through the proceedure of what I had to do again (they went through it on the ground and he said it at some point on the way up, but I honestly had no hope in hell of remembering anything that wasn't about to directly affect me). When they opened the doors, the first people to jump where the more experienced divers, followed by the tandem jumpers that were in the front of the plane. Then we had to scoot down to the doors and had to sit on the edge of the plane, legs dangling out while I tilted my head back onto his shoulder, and he was the one that pushed us off. I am so fucking glad that I had to lean back against him, because there was no fucking way I would have been able to throw myself out of that plane. I took long look when I had to sit down and even though I nearly had a heart attack, my fear levels definitely would have made it impossible for me to jump. So I am thankful that Byron had to be the one to make us jump.
And then I was free-falling.
Holy fucking shit, there are no words for how intense it is. Seriously, I felt like my face was trying to rip itself from my skull, just trying to turn my head so that I could get a look of my surroundings (something one of the instructors advised us to do - don't just stare at the ground! Take a good look around!) was extremely difficult because of the wind resistance. The weird thing is that even though I remember quite a lot of what happened at the time, after I got back on the ground, the intensity of the whole thing kind of overwhelmed me and I kind of blacked out everything from the moment I started falling until after I got on the ground. It wasn't until I started talking with some of the others that it came back to me and I began to remember exactly how it felt to jump.
The first thing I noticed is that I couldn't scream. I don't know if I had wanted to (but its usually my first instinct when I'm falling), but I couldn't because the air is pretty much forcing itself down your throat, and nothing is going get past that. I think I had a split second flash back to my CA telling me that her friend who also went skydiving said the same thing and I was like "huh, so she was right about not being able to scream" LOL my attention span, I don't even.
The next thing I noticed was that my ears hurt like a bitch. I had to pop them and I can't remember how I did that. I think I must have swallowed and that cleared it up, because I don't think I got to hold my nose ... but I may have and I just can't remember. This was one of those things that I remembered once I got to the ground, because everyone else had the same thing. I'm not surprised, if you drop that quickly from 13,000 feet!
I also remember feeling the skin on my face try to peel itself off - I swear to god that's what it felt like. It was so strange, I guess if your skin was like water and was stuck in front of a fan, you would get the same feeling. And when I turned my head to look over to my right and then to my left, my cheekbone facing the ground would get smushed further into my mouth, whereas the other one would be floating off my face. LOL I bet it would look ridiculous, my mouth contorted like that. But because my mouth was open for most of the time - I think I tried to close it at one point, but the wind forced it open again - about halfway through the freefall I noticed that my mouth was insanely dry. I'm talking like when you are sick as a dog and just after you wake up, there is no moisture in your mouth and you feel like your tongue and everything is like sandpaper. I did try to swallow and get some moisture into my mouth, but there really wasn't any point because within 2 seconds it was gone again. But you know, not really thinking when falling at the speed of gravity. Though I somehow managed to switch on my brain and force my hips out like I was supposed to.
After about five seconds, Byron tapped me on the shoulder to signal that I could hold my arms out. My god, as soon as I let go of the straps on my shoulders and extended them the slightest bit, they snapped back as far as they could go. I remember the instantaneous "holyfuckingshit!" before concentrating on the fact that I was getting a bird's eye view of the earth and taking full advantage of that. By the way - 55seconds of free fall is a fucking long time. I do remember by the end of it I was like 'HOW IS IT NOT A MINUTE YET?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!' because the dry throat and the roaring in my ears and pressure on everything was overloading my brain. I was very thankful for my goggles, since I reckon my eyeballs would have popped out of their sockets, let's just put it that way.
Then Byron pulled the 'shute and did everything that he was supposed to on the way down. I left it in his capable hands - not that I had much choice - but I know that he had to do this thing here he dropped me slightly in the harness so that I sat better in proportion to him. Thankfully, I didn't really feel it (I know that he did it because he was fiddling with straps and I'm pretty sure there was a moment when I felt a shift, but it was nothing substantial). I think if I had felt that drop though, I would have fucking lost my mind. But because the wind was still trying to lift you up and keep you going every which way, thankfully I barely noticed it.
Once I could breathe talk again, I let out a gaspy, raspy "can I take my camera out now?" and he said yes and then proceeded to direct me in taking pictures. I'm kind of glad that he did though, because my brain = ded right about then. I took pictures of the ground on my own (first thing I thought of to do), but then he told me to take pictures of my feet and then angle the camera up so that I take a picture of us from my stomach and then from out in front. Then he told me to turn on the video and I didn't actually know what he was planning, but he pulled down on one of the handles so that the parachute would turn us in a circle. I think he did it so we spun to the right first and then to the left (after he stabilised as from the right turn, I thought he was done and went to turn the camera to the ground to film us coming down, but he told me to keep the camera on us and that's when he started us in the left-spin). I remember which was first because the first thing that comes to mind from the spinning is the pain. Because of how the harness was strapped to my thighs, when we would circle in the air, in good ol' fashion Newton's law, the pressure had to be applied somewhere, and that just so happened to be my thigh. Not that I'm complaining, by any means. It was almost a good thing, because the pain kind of drew me out of the dazed state that I was in. Seriously - my right thigh didn't hurt nearly as much because I was so out of it that I only really registered what was going on in the last couple of seconds. And the he stopped turning us, and I had the delayed 'OMG WE JUST SPUN IN THE AIR!! THAT'S SO AWESOME!' reaction. But then he turned us to the left and that's when I felt the sting in my thigh and it almost went on too long to bear - right near the end I was thinking "okokok, I'm good with the circling! I'm in paaaaaaaaaain!" At the same time though I was elated and high off adrenaline. I remember thinking "FUCK YEA~~~!!!!!" and laughing/smiling a lot. Byron did ask if all was well and I mentioned the pain factor (because when he stopped all the spinning around, my legs were angled sort of weirdly), and they were pushed back still (as though I was still trying to stick my hips out as in freefall). So he said to try and lift my legs up 'to take some of the pressure off' and that helped heaps.
Then suddenly, the ground was approaching rather quickly and Byron was telling me that he was going to guide us down to where the plane just landed (lol me, I was all "are we going to land where the plane just landed" OMG STUPID QUESTION IS STUPID). And then it seemed like we landed insanely quickly - all of a sudden I could see the strip we were supposed to land on and then, next second, we had landed! I had stuffed my camera back into my jumpsuit and had grabbed the sides of my jumpsuit (they had this little rubber thing attached to the outside of my legs) to help pull my legs up to make sure that I would slide into the ground on my butt. I think I pretty much landed in Byron's lap because I didn't really feel much pain in my arse from landing on the ground, and I don't think I used the heels of my feet at all to help cushion/soften the blow (though I definitely don't think my arse was the first thing to hit the ground). He unhooked me right away and then told me I was free to stand up. LOL that was like asking for the world, but I managed to roll myself off him and used my hands to help push myself to stand up. How I managed to actually stand up, I'll never know, but I definitely took awhile to regain my balance fully. I kind of stumbled in a circle in the process of getting up XDD;;
I turned around to shake Byron's hand and say thank you and said that I would wait around so that I could sign his logbook. He said that the girls/guys inside would take care of me (I presume he meant getting out of my suit), so that's where I headed first. And an interesting tidbit here - the first thing my brain registered after I realised I was back on the ground was that my hands were tingling. They were warming up from having gone numb during the fall, and I hadn't really noticed until I got back to the warmer ground. YET! It was freezing on the ground! Then when I went inside to see what the deal was RE getting my stuff off, it was even warmer and that was what kind of brought my brain back into existence. LOL the cold froze it to death xD; but nothing seemed to be going on inside so I went back outside and talked with the two students that went diving in my group. They were asking about things that we felt/experienced while we were up there (like our ears needing popping and our faces wanting to peel off) and that was when I realised that I had tried to register as much as I could, but the huge amount of adrenaline just caused me to totally blank after I landed. LOL.
When the next group came back down and Byron was now free to help us get out of our suits and hand me my Certificate of Achievement for Skydiving, before getting me to sign his logbook. I did so (I believe I took pictures of this whole process, but I'm too lazy too check xD) and then handed the logbook over to the other guy that also jumped with him. I went outside to talk with the group of girls that I drove out with (James was also there) and we talked about skydiving some more. James brought up the fact that people do die doing skydiving, but they are usually people trying to learn how to get to be an experienced level Jumper. He told us a few horror stories about one lady who died because she jumped out and when she went to deploy her shute, the lines got tangled in her foot and she spent the rest of the time fiddling with it and trying to untangle it (instead of just cutting it lose and deploying her reserve). Even just before she hit the ground she was still trying to untangle the cords around her feet, and another skydiver witnessed this. This was back before the automatic reserve thing was installed, and it actually saved this woman's life later when she had a problem when she deployed her shute and it got tangled in her braids and was trying to rip her skull off. She couldn't cut it away, but when the reserve automatically went off it ended up fixing everything or something, and it saved her life. So she's a big advocate of that automatic reserve system.
James wanted to do some diving that day but ended up leaving around midday without doing any jumps (I really had to get back in time for Quidditch, so I was adamant that I wanted to be back by 2pm), which we all felt bad about. He was really good about it and just said that the club at the moment was a small group of people that were just really enthusiastically trying to get people interested and would just basically sacrifice their free time to shuttle people back and forth and give their time to volunteer to help the skydiving centre out. It was pretty amazing to hear, and I feel for them. The University of Minnesota doesn't give them any kind of support, which is a big blow to the club. But fingers crossed that will change in the future.
Anyway, we got back and I really don't know if it has still settled in. I went to Quidditch and told everyone on my team and was all "I CONQUERED THE SKIES TODAY, THEREFORE WE WILL WIN!" yea, like that would happen but I really think my body is in some kind detachment from the whole thing. Typing this up though gave me a bit of a 'I AM SUCH A BATSHIT CRAZY PERSON' freak out, but I definitely handled the whole thing a lot better than I thought I did. I'm looking forward to doing it again!! 8DDD