There is a perennial item on bucket lists throughout the multiverse; a thing that all peoples great and small aspire to, if only because it is potentially dangerous, very scary, and sounds really cool. (And perhaps because no one spends more than fifteen minutes making a bucket list).
That’s right, skydiving. And, as of this last Saturday, I have crossed it off of my non-existent bucket list (one day I’ll have to spend the fifteen minutes making one).
Although, honestly, for me it wasn’t as big a deal as I’m hyping it up to be. First of all, I have absolutely no fear of heights. If anything I enjoy them. Secondly, I have family who are a)in the air force or b)used to be really into jumping out of planes, so it’s not that impressive to most of the people I know.
But for the rest of you, let me tell you a little about it.
I’ve wanted to go skydiving for a while and luckily I have awesome friends who know that when I say that I want to do something I’m very rarely kidding. One of these awesome people is Emily who, upon hearing my declaration said something along the lines of “really? me too! Let’s do that when I get a Saturday off.” Which led directly to a “hey, I have next Saturday off. Skydiving?”
The place we decided on was called Skydive Kapowsin and, per their instructions, we blocked off three hours of our schedules expecting some kind of training or semi-cheesy video.
But no, after signing our life away in waivers (I agreed to not hold the instructors, the land owners, the building managers, the owners of the plane, the pilots of the plane, the gods of the wind, nor the trolls that grab at your feet as you pass overhead liable for my potential death, dismemberment, injury or traumatic experiences) we were ushered out to get suited up and, after a brief stint of instructions while putting on our jumpsuits and harnesses, on a plane heading up into the strangely clear sky within fifteen minutes.
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| Look! A blue sky! In Seattle? What luck! |
Now, some of this was because the place was less of a tourist location and more of a place that serious skydivers go to get jumps in. Most of the people on the plane with us were AFF (Accelerated Free Fall) and it was most of their second or third jump of the day. But this was far from being a negative thing, everyone was super friendly and relaxed about the jump and spent most of the short flight up to 14000 feet joking about each other’s form.
I remember glancing out of the window and then glancing back to realize that suddenly there were a lot less people on the plane, the door had been open for a while but apparently the AFF divers go at a different time then the tandems. I didn’t have much time to think about that, because it was time to strap my harness up to my tandem partner and start frog stepping/sliding over to the open door.
I was the second tandem person out and as I watched the first guy fall out of the open door like a rock I worried that my friendliness with heights was about to abandon me. And, for a brief moment as I stared out the open door I had a thought along the lines of “Gee, that’s a long way down” as I realized that there was literally nothing but empty space between me and the ground. It felt rather empty for a moment.
But I didn’t have much time to contemplate the fall because within the space of two breaths we were out the door, flipping around to catch sight of the plane and the bright blue sky for a moment, and then back towards the squares of open fields and forest that lay below me.
And here, strangely enough, my thoughts were not on how high I was, or even how crazy it was that I was in the FREAKING SKY, but rather on the massive amounts of air flying past my face. It was less like I was falling and more like I had stood up in my open convertible whilst going 90 miles down the freeway. I had to remind myself that I could breathe.
Then there was a big tap on my back from my tandem partner and the canopy was released. Suddenly I was upright and everything was quiet. Here, for the first time I had the sensation that I was flying. My tandem partner was nice enough to let me play with the canopy for a little while, doing circles and swooping around, but all too soon I handed the controls back to him as the ground got close enough to be an issue.
We landed smoothly on the grass (mostly because he did all the work) and then Emily landed right after me. We ran and jumped and hugged our instructors, calling all of our friends and family, hyped up on adrenaline and the idea that we had actually done it.
We had jumped out of a freaking plane.
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| Emily and I after our jump. |