Why am I leaping out of this perfectly good plane?
Well I finally did it. My fears that it would rain this weekend turned out to be totaly unfounded, it's been perfect weather both days!
My flatmate Natalie was kind enough to drive me out to the Mercer SkyDiving Centre (thanks Nat) and I'm lucky she did because it was in the middle of nowhere. I certainly wouldn't have been able to get a bus out there like I'd planned. Time to face my fear of heights once and for all.
So once I arrived, I paid my money, signed the form that said if I went "splat" I couldn't sue them and then met my instructor Dean. He was a pretty good bloke, I think SkyDiving was his career. I got all suited up and told what to do, then it was into the plane!
The plane was the smallest most cramped thing you can image, and inside bits were stuck on using sticky tape. Suddenly I was glad people had parachutes. It reminded me of riding in the boot of a car. It didn't help that there was 5 of us either. When we finally got to 10,000 feet the other guy and his instructor jumped out. That was when I really started to get nervous. I'd been fine up until then, but watching them suddenly drop away at a million miles freaked me out a bit. Then I was my turn. 3 2 1 Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!
What can I say? You have to do it to realise how scary and fun (at the same tiem) it is. The first 10 seconds I was 100% scared to death and screaming. It was like the feeling you get having one of those "I've just walked off the edge of a cliff" type nightmares. Once I realised that all was OK I really started to enjoy the freefall. We did a few spins and tricks, waved to the camera man and WOOMPH, pulled the chute.
The decent on parachute was just as much fun (and scary) as the freefall itself. Especially when Dean decided to do a few crazy speed turns and other tricks. When we finally landed I stuffed it up perfectly by collapsing instead of standing up, but it was a minor stuffup.
So if you've never done SkyDiving, try it. I know I'm going to go again at some stage, I've got the details here of a course on SkyDiving, but it costs $2600 so it'll be a little while before I "invest" in that.
I've got the video and film here, I'll get the film developed and put the photos in the photo section somtime tomorrow.
TiM