Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Sky Diving!
Ok, so I know its been a little while since I posted anything on this blog. Ok, so its been well over a year. Ok, so I'm lazy. Here's a new posting about something I wasn't sure I'd ever do, skydiving.
I can't remember who suggested it, but one of my mountain biking friends said I should go skydiving for my 'big 30'. It almost didn't happen, because in the last 5 weeks there were only 2 days of acceptable weather for skydiving in Masterton. Needless to say it was raining the day after my birthday, so had to reschedule. Oh yes, the birthday... It was great. A good BBQ, good beer, and good friends, its hard to go wrong. The weather next week was amazing though, like a beautiful summer day. I only managed to convince one other person to jump out of a 'perfectly good plane' (that phrase kept coming up!).
Having planned it for a while, I wasn't nervous at all. Even when I was in the plane, climbing to altitude I still wasn't. Then they opened the door... Phew, then it hit me. It was also bloody cold up there. I looked down at the ground 10000 feet beneath me, and started to get a bit nervous. The instructor and I both inched closer to the door, I stopped so I could sit on the edge and get ready for what I was about to do. Maritin, the instructor, told me to get a bit further out, presumably so he would be sitting on the edge. I knew we were going to jump pretty soon, but I was expecting some sort of warning. Before I know it, I'm falling out the door. Actually I would use the term "pushed". I don't blame them though, its probably the best way to get someone out of a plane.
So now I can see why I was nervous. Man, this is not a normal place for a human to be, free falling from 10000 ft! The acceleration was intense, it felt like there was no end to how fast we were going to go. Even when we reached terminal velocity, you still had a serious sensation of speed. I totally messed up the body position, as you can see in the photos. The hands were ok, but I had absolutely no backward bend, in fact my legs were pointing down for a while. Thats an excellent way to be unstable in the air, as I found out. At least I'd know for next time. It was totally new to me. Once I got "used" to the feeling of freefall, it was a lot of fun. I can see why some people are addicted to this.
So as soon as I'm getting used to freefalling, and have the legs in the right place, I feel us both go upright, then a serious upward g-force. Man, those chutes really slow you down quick. I guess we were going pretty quick, so it took a while. I think the photographer kept going down, so thats the end of the pics in the sky.
Once the cute finally slowed us down, it was amazing up there. It felt so calm and relaxed compared to freefall. All the nervousness was gone, it was great. Its amazing how far you can see up there. We could see a couple Sopwith Camels flying around, getting ready for another Peter Jackson movie. Then he starts doing these big swinging turns with the chute. Again, the g-forces were pretty intense, but I was surprised how disorienting it was. It was hard to get a feel for where your body was going, lots of fun though!
The instructor was very experienced which made the landing easy. We just slid on the grass for a short distance, and it was over. Man! That is a serious rush. It wasn't physical at all, but both of us 'first time jumpers' were drained by the end of the day from all the adrenaline. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, too bad its so expensive. Surprisingly, its actually cheaper in NZ than Nova Scotia. Glad I did it hear then!
The skydiving people in Masterton are 0800 Skydivenz.
I can't remember who suggested it, but one of my mountain biking friends said I should go skydiving for my 'big 30'. It almost didn't happen, because in the last 5 weeks there were only 2 days of acceptable weather for skydiving in Masterton. Needless to say it was raining the day after my birthday, so had to reschedule. Oh yes, the birthday... It was great. A good BBQ, good beer, and good friends, its hard to go wrong. The weather next week was amazing though, like a beautiful summer day. I only managed to convince one other person to jump out of a 'perfectly good plane' (that phrase kept coming up!).
Having planned it for a while, I wasn't nervous at all. Even when I was in the plane, climbing to altitude I still wasn't. Then they opened the door... Phew, then it hit me. It was also bloody cold up there. I looked down at the ground 10000 feet beneath me, and started to get a bit nervous. The instructor and I both inched closer to the door, I stopped so I could sit on the edge and get ready for what I was about to do. Maritin, the instructor, told me to get a bit further out, presumably so he would be sitting on the edge. I knew we were going to jump pretty soon, but I was expecting some sort of warning. Before I know it, I'm falling out the door. Actually I would use the term "pushed". I don't blame them though, its probably the best way to get someone out of a plane.
So now I can see why I was nervous. Man, this is not a normal place for a human to be, free falling from 10000 ft! The acceleration was intense, it felt like there was no end to how fast we were going to go. Even when we reached terminal velocity, you still had a serious sensation of speed. I totally messed up the body position, as you can see in the photos. The hands were ok, but I had absolutely no backward bend, in fact my legs were pointing down for a while. Thats an excellent way to be unstable in the air, as I found out. At least I'd know for next time. It was totally new to me. Once I got "used" to the feeling of freefall, it was a lot of fun. I can see why some people are addicted to this.
So as soon as I'm getting used to freefalling, and have the legs in the right place, I feel us both go upright, then a serious upward g-force. Man, those chutes really slow you down quick. I guess we were going pretty quick, so it took a while. I think the photographer kept going down, so thats the end of the pics in the sky.
Once the cute finally slowed us down, it was amazing up there. It felt so calm and relaxed compared to freefall. All the nervousness was gone, it was great. Its amazing how far you can see up there. We could see a couple Sopwith Camels flying around, getting ready for another Peter Jackson movie. Then he starts doing these big swinging turns with the chute. Again, the g-forces were pretty intense, but I was surprised how disorienting it was. It was hard to get a feel for where your body was going, lots of fun though!
The instructor was very experienced which made the landing easy. We just slid on the grass for a short distance, and it was over. Man! That is a serious rush. It wasn't physical at all, but both of us 'first time jumpers' were drained by the end of the day from all the adrenaline. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, too bad its so expensive. Surprisingly, its actually cheaper in NZ than Nova Scotia. Glad I did it hear then!
The skydiving people in Masterton are 0800 Skydivenz.
Labels: skydiving
# posted by Chris LeBlanc @ 12:57 AM 
