SKY DIVING!!! 7-16-2005

So turns out skydiving is not NEARLY as scary as I thought it would be. I thought for sure it'd be nothing but that falling feeling the whole time, and my stomach would be in my throat, and the whole time I'd be worried that I'd wet my pants from being so scared. But really, all it felt like was driving down the road really (REALLY) fast with your whole body out the window. I had no idea how far we went before my tandem guy popped the shute. And then it was SO quiet. And beautiful.
And then there's the part where we fell through a rainbow! I ate rainbow! It didn't taste like too much. =)
Of the 8 of us that went up to Skydive Hawaii, 5 of us actually did the jump, Dave and I went first in this little 4 seater plane (with all the seats taken out except for the pilots) with no door... i thought maybe I'd get sucked out.. So we're going up... and up... and up... and the guy I'm loosely strapped to is behind me, reading a national geographic about some kind of indians (makaw?) in the pacific northwest cause it's so loud it's not really practical to try and talk; and I can't stop looking out the window. It was crazy being up that high around the island. We could see over Kaena point to the Leeward side, plus most of the north shore, the mountains looked so small and far below us. In my head I'm saying to myself, "don't think about it, don't think about it.." cause I don't want to be imagining the feeling I'm going to get when it's time to go out the door, and how long we'll be falling, and whether the shute is going to open and what that's going to feel like.. then all of a sudden, it's time to go. I have to sit up on the guy's (Jake's) legs as he tightens all the straps and suddenly I'm stuck to him very tightly (which makes me feel better- at least I'm not going to fall out of the harness!). Then he taps me, "ok, time to go. Keep your arms in till I tap you, then let them out and arch your back for the shute to open." this is all I need to know. I'm nodding, trying to stop my leg (only the left one) from shaking as he's talking, then I inch towards the door with him, thinking too many things to even remember. Next thing I know, he's picked me up and out we go! I think my eyes tried to pop out of my head. I squealed a little bit and then realized that it didn't bother me that I was falling.. It just felt like wind as I relaxed my mouth and let me cheeks flap for a while. Then he tapped my shoulder and poof! we were floating and it was silent. I gave him a quick geologic history of the island after he pointed out some popular features and we saw Dave and his guy floating down about 100 yds away. Landing was pretty cool too. Faster than I thought it'd be cause I put my feet down a little too hard to it kind of stung, but all I could do was smile. BIG. FAT. I'M SO GLAD I DID THAT. SMILE. luckly, we have a picture so I can always remember that feeling. Then it was Claire, James, and Addie's turn. they were happy to see us land and get the "that was kick-ass" report from us right before they walked to their plane. We basked in our cheating of death while we watched them fly away and then re-lived our excitement as we watched them float to the ground after their own experience of jumping (or in my case, being kind of thrown) out of a plane. I've definitely got to do it again.

Here's the crew: Jen, Addie, Dave, Liz, James, Desiree, Claire, Ahia

Dave landing!

Liz and Dave after landing... SO GLAD, GOTTA DO IT AGAIN!

Claire and her Tandem Maaaas-ter.

Liz landing.