Skydiving Experience – The Ultimate!

Yes, I skydived on July 4^th, 2009 from a height of 14000 ft at a dropzone called Skydive WestPoint in Virginia.

Yes, it was bloody awesome, thrilling and exhilarating.

Yes, the money ($239+$99(video)) was totally worth it.

Yes, it was the best adventure I’ve had till date. I have not done Bungee yet. Even then, I don’t think Bungee will beat this.

And yes, I am still as excited as a little kid with his favorite toy, even after 24 hrs of the skydive.

Enough said.

July 4^th weekend is one of the more eagerly awaited long weekends in North America. While the citizens bask in the summer sun and the glory of their Independence, the desis proudly go about their trips to Niagara Falls, New York and Las Vegas. The bright skies and warm weather brings out the best in people. It surely brought about the craziness in me. I decided to skydive.

Skydiving has been one of my long cherised goals – well, around 2 years is quite long enough I think. As a good desi, I also had plans to trip up to NY and explore the Modern Art Museum for 2 full days. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I couldn’t make it and ended up disappointed for most of Thursday and better part of Friday. And then, the idea struck and it didn’t take much effort to convince a couple of my friends that the best way to spend such a weekend was to skydive.

We arrived at SkyDive Westpoint at around 3 in the afternoon. As was the case in most of the tourist hotspots in the US on this weekend, we encountered a long queue of people who wanted to skydive too, and I ended up being slotted in the 6′o clock skydive. I killed 3 hrs, don’t ask how.

Skydiving has two streams, so to say. Tandem skydiving, wherein an experienced skydiver straps the novice (me) and skydives. The second stream, is the Accerelated Free Fall (AFF) where the diver jumps all by himself. As you would have guessed, I chose tandem skydiving.

We finally boarded the flight at 6′o clock. My tandem instructor, Mario from Argentina was a crazily funny guy. Before we boarded the flight, he came up to me and said (in a baritone voice) ‘hey, why do you want to skydive on this wonderful Saturday? Guess you didn’t have anything much to do, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha’. I was lost for words. Anyways, the flight started its ascent. 1000 ft, 2000 ft….(an altimeter is part of the gear for any skydiver), my nervousness increased in exponential proportion to the increase in height. Beyond 8000 ft, everything looked very tiny and at this point, I frankly didn’t care if it was 10000 ft or 12000 ft as they had advertised. They decided to exceed customer’s expectations like a good company and the other skydivers started jumping off the plane not until the plane reached 14000 ft. So there. I was incredibly happy and delighted as a customer, only short of hitting the manager of the company. I was shit nervous.

Mario, for his part, strapped me on well and checked the gear thrice. Then he says, ‘Anything goes amiss, don’t blame me. I did my due diligence’ and winks. I suddenly remembered the Fed for some strange reason and by the time I realized we were the last one to get out, right near the exit. Our cameraman was Bret, a young chap who was absolutely crazy about skydiving. And then Mario went, ‘One (move in the front), Two (arch back like a spring) and Three (jump)’ and…we were off the plane.

Thrilled? Excited? Scared?

The first thing I realized once I got off the plane was the cold air that hit my face. It was very cold up there at 14000 ft. The second thing I realized was the speed at which I was falling, more like hurtling down at 120 miles per hr (that by the way is the actual speed at which you fall). I looked down and went ‘Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit…aaaaaaaaaa (to infinity)’. I never realized Virginia was so beautiful till I was looking around, seeing the huge lake directly below me, the greenery all around and of course, death in near vicinity and only 10000 ft away. Bret for his part managed to come near us, shoot the video while making various antics along with Mario while I didn’t know whether to laugh, scream or just faint. The view, the speed, the thrill – it was breathtaking.

Off We Go

The freefall continued for about 60 seconds. In those 60 seconds, I screamed like never before, moved like never before and enjoyed like never before. I then understood the slogan for skydivers ‘The Ultimate Thrill’ in its truest sense.

After hurtling about 8000 ft in 60 seconds, as instructed before, I was supposed to open the parachute at 6000 ft. I was lost in the entire thrill and Mario prodded me to open the parachute and I did. If you have never experienced a perfect spring ball action, this is it. The moment I opened the parachute, I was pulled up, probably 300-700 ft, like someone up there pulled me from dropping on the earth. Mario, very gracefully, handed over the parachute reins to me for some time while he cracked wild jokes. After about 5-7 mins of gliding through the air, we were about to land when he took over the reins of the parachute again and landed safely.

The entire experience was totally surreal and exhilarating. It was an experience of a lifetime. Will I ever do it again? Well, it’s anybody’s guess.

Here’s the link to my skydiving video (for some copyright background music reason, am not able to upload it onto youtube).

http://www.motionbox.com/videos/7a9dd8b31e1de2c1f5

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