For some reason the night before I could not sleep. Its strange but I haven't really been able to sleep since I started the trek north but it hasn't seemed to effect me much. But the reason I couldn't sleep last night was not due to the fact that in the morning I would be hurling myself out of a perfectly good airplane from 14,000 feet. I think that it was because I had spent most of the day on the beach and hadn't showered before I went to bed; the first and last time I'll ever do that. And so I woke up at 6am, evidently I fell asleep at some point, and began to get ready for what was sure to be an eventful day. But despite the realization that I was going to skydive in less than a couple hours I was not nervous. The realization had just not set in yet.
We got to Byron Bay a couple days ago (Marine and I as well as a group of other travelers that are on the same route north that we've kinda ganged up with) and decided to finally do what we've been planning to do for quite sometime. After selling an organ I was finally able to pay for it and we were scheduled for the next morning. A couple of the other guys, Jared from Denver and Scott from Edmonton, decided to jump as well so we had a good group for the plunge.
A bus picked us up in front of our hostel and we scooped up everyone else around Byron and headed for the air field. We filled out the necessary paper work which basically stated that they were not liable in the case of our death and so we all signed away our lives. We were fitted for our gear by one of the grumpiest ladies (the only problem with the company as I saw it as everyone else was nice as pie) and waited for our turn as we watched two other groups go before us. We all got the video camera option for our dive so the camera men started interviewing us before we got in the plane. And through all this I was still not nervous as the reality of what I was about to do still had not set in.
After we were all in the plane we all shared excited and nervous looks as the plane rose into the sky and over the ocean. The flight time up to the drop altitude took about 10 minutes and the tandem instructor strapped me into his harnesses and gave me final instructions. The view from 14,00ft is amazing. The green landscape turned into distant mountains and disappeared into the horizon. And despite this unbelievably peaceful and serene view, I was starting to get nervous.
The door opened. Marine was first as she had selected the 11,000ft altitude but since she was the only one they just decided to go strait to 14000ft. Less than 10 seconds later, she and her instructor were free falling towards the ground. At the sight of them rolling out of the plan nervousness started to take a firm hold of me. And then about 2 seconds later I got really nervous as my instructor said, "Lets go!"
We sat down on the floor and moved to the ledge. I dangled my legs outside of the plane and braced for the next step. This was the second scariest part of the jump. Sometimes I'll have bad dreams or day dreams about standing on the ledge of a tall building or falling from an extremely elevated point only to come back to reality and be thankful that my feet were still on the ground. But now, I was willingly putting myself in that very same position, and this was very real.
When we leaped out of the plane, it is hard to describe the feeling but the best way I could do it would be to say that it was the most unnatural feeling I've ever had. All my instincts kicked in as I naturally wanted to right myself or hold onto something or stand on a firm object. I don't remember seeing anything when we first jumped except maybe the sky, but not the plane or the ground. He released the initial stabilizing chute and we opened our arms. I was face to face with the ground from 14,000ft and closing fast.
It is the strangest and most surreal feeling to be falling for 60 seconds. In retrospect it seemed about half as long. I always imagined that when the chute was pulled it would be like hitting a wall or something but it was actually quite smooth. We then coasted down for about 5 minutes and did some spiral dives as I got to steer the chute for a bit. We landed in the field where we took off and when you get to around 500 ft. you can really see everything take shape. People become visible and the trees become more vivid. As we came to a running stop my instructor unharnessed me and my camera man asked me how it was: I couldn't really do it justice as I tried to say how amazing it was. Plus I was a little winded, no pun intended.
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