Well, I guess this isn’t really trekking, so maybe I should have called my blog adventure geek instead. Here goes:

Friday before Mothers Day, I texted Jasmine as asked her if she would like to skydive with me. Neither of us have ever done that, so I thought it would be cool do experience that together. After she thought about it, she said sure, why not! Unfortunately, Mothers Day had both winds and clouds working against us; you can’t jump if you can’t see where you are supposed to land, and high winds didn’t help either.

Things got busy with Aaron’s graduation, but this weekend, we finally got the chance to revisit the idea; we had rain-checks as I had bought the jumps on a Mothers Day “special”. We got there at about 11:00 am. It was unusually busy, and the Dallas facility was down to one plane, so we were looking at a long wait. The place was packed with folks; lots of tandem divers, but a lot of seasoned folks and groups jumping too. The extra time allowed us to watch the other jumpers, figure out where we would be loading and where we would be coming down (to have Aaron set up for photos). Talking to one of the instructors, he said they were flying a plane back from the Houston skydiving facility to help move things along. While I was excited to get on a Dehavilland Twin Otter again (last time I was on one was flying out of Lukla). The plane we ended up jumping from was the one they brought up from Houston, a Cessna Caravan.

As time grew close, we met our instructors for the dive, got our jumpsuit and harness on, and listened to our instructors go through what we would be doing. I jumped with Ernie, who had made over 20,000 jumps (according to the videos they were playing at the facility) and Jasmine’s instructor was Ashley. We piled on the plane, sitting facing backwards while straddling benches. It was enjoyable watching the excitement of all the jumpers on board. We had one person jump at 7,000 feet (called a “hop and pop” because you pull the cord so quickly) and the rest of us went up to 14,000 feet. Jasmine and I were the last off the plane, Jasmine first. It took me a few moments to get over the initial rush of air, adrenaline, and excitement as free fall began; my breathing was too fast, but then it calmed. At that point, I was basically watching for 7,000 feet to start paying close attention to my wrist altimeter so I could pull at 6,000 feet. Next thing you know, I was floating down. My instructor let me help steer the canopy some, but it was clear he was in control. We landed pretty close to the mark, Jasmine was already on the ground with her instructor.

 

All in all, I would say it was a success, so much so that Jasmine wants to do it again (you basically get half off the next jump if you buy it the day of your first)! You are either all in or not.

More photos at: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmmfEDuy