gone in sixty seconds

I'd want to say "words fail me" in describing my skydiving experience, but it's more like a manic rush of words fighting to get out. Lots of hurry up and wait. An entire subculture of tattooed jumpers who are beyond addicted, who work at the center so they can sneak in free jumps, a dozen a day or more. Their pictures are on the wall, some of them with six hundred jumps, some with nine thousand.

The twin-engine plane, probably a cessna, felt like it was pointed straight up, just grinding to get us high enough into the air. When we hit 14000 and leveled out, there was no ceremony, no green light -- the junkies in front rolled the door open and hopped out and they were gone.

We were tandem jumping, so I was strapped to one of those junkies, Brian. On the ground he asked how I wanted to exit. At this point, I'm in the "screw it" stage, so I said, "What's the most fun?" He grinned and said, "We're flipping!" For the flip, I kneel on the edge of the door, arms crossed, back arched. We will rock forward "ready", back "set", and forward "go" and that's it.

That's just how it happens, within seconds everyone in front of me is out of the plane except for another tandem pair. It takes them another three seconds, and then I'm positioning on the threshold, wondering what in the hell has possessed me. I look out, look down. Apparently at this point my soul leaves my body? I rock and I'm gone, spinning and completely disoriented and then suddenly laid out flat with the wind rushing and a sense of calm.

The sinking feeling isn't much worse than a high jump diving board -- it's gone before you know it, replaced with the fact that you're rushing 144mph (as recorded) through the air. We did some spins, but mostly I just gawked at the scenery and tried to shut off the various mental circuits that were overloading. After what felt like thirty seconds I pulled the cord and our canopy opened. That was much less jarring than I was suspecting, possibly because most of the impact was on the other jumper.

At this point, two new concerns arise. Brian has given me control, so I'm happy steering the chute. This involves a lot of swinging of the bodies around the bottom and can definitely induce motion sickness. Second, as the ground is coming into focus, in the last 1000-2000 feet, you start feeling afraid of heights again, which doesn't help.

A few late turns got us in the landing field at speed, and we had a perfect slide to end the dive. Overall, it's an amazing experience. I'm not rushing back tomorrow, but I'd definitely want any of my friends to try it, and I'd go along with them, to be sure.

Props to the ASC for taking such good care of us.