Skydiving!

Today I skydived.

Today I skydove.

Today I went on a skydive. There.

This morning I had no idea I'd be going on a skydive. I woke up in Rotorua at 6:15 AM. Walked to the bus stop. And waited. The bus didn't show. Magic Bus, or more accurately, our last Magic Bus driver, screwed up by giving us the wrong pick-up location thus leaving us stranded. We hates Magic!

So we caught an Intercity Bus south to Taupo. It made me feel like a real traveler using non-tour transportation. It was absolutely lovely.

Since we'd be arriving in Taupo at 10 AM with Intercity rather than at 4 PM with Magic, we figured we'd try to get our free skydive a day early.

"Sure!" said the very chipper Lisa at the Taupo Tandem Skydive. So it was set. At 11:40 AM, we'd skydive. That was unexpected.

We call at 11:10 AM to confirm. Friendly Lisa told us, sorry, the weather is unfavorable. Clouds and rain. No go for skydiving.

Reschedule for 12:50 PM.

Call at 12:20 PM. Sorry, says nice Lisa, the weather is still crap. We've postponed everything 'til 2 PM.

I'm not expecting much. So I take a nap.

Scott calls again at 1:30 PM.

"Call back in 5 minutes."

Scott calls at 1:35 PM.

"Call back in 5 minutes."

Scott calls at 1:40 PM.

It's ON! "The shuttle will pick you up in 15 minutes."

Uh, okay! I hurry and gather my stuff. I'm still stuck in a haze from lack of sleep the previous night, general irritability and my recent semi-nap.

We pile in the shuttle with 6 other people. One girl looks terrified beyond belief. I'm still rather indifferent.

I'm going skydiving right next to a lake larger than the size of Singapore in weather conditions that postponed the dive on multiple occasions. Shouldn't I be nervous?

We suit up in bright orange jumpers slightly reminiscent of prison and a baby's onesie. Odd combination.

They help us put on a lifejacket belt and completely awkward harnesses. "Can you breathe?" asks the lady. "Yup, no problem at all," I reply with ease. "That's not good," says she. Oh dear.

Finally we're all prisoned/babied/tightened/secured. Sorta like this group who went after us:

They eyed us skydive survivors with trepidation and awe as we walked back like we were an Apollo mission going to the moon or group of Hollywood movie heroes who just saved the world from complete annihilation.

I'm totally making that up by the way. Except for the part where they eyed us with trepidation. Shouldn't they eye us with relief since we who went before them didn't die or break or dismember anything?

We clambered into the cramped plane. Skydiving makes sitting on a stranger's lap, awkward spread-legged positions and a complete lack of personal boundaries entirely acceptable. We are a many-layered human sandwich of yellow and orange.

I have yell-conversations with my instructor. He takes my lack of nervousness and absence of hand-wringing as a challenge. "We're at 2000 feet," he yells, shoving his wrist-strapped altimeter in front of my face. "This is where we try to open the parachute. TRY." I laugh at him.

Moments later... "So, if there's a choice between landing among horses and bulls, which would you rather?" I ask if he can maneuver us to land ON a horse. "Do you ride?" he asks. "Nope!" I yell. "Then it's probably not a good idea," says he. Well, pfft! You're the one trying to scare me with talk of landing in the middle of a herd of large animals! We might as well get some horseback riding in if that's the case.

Moments later... "Can you swim?" Yessir. You're gonna have to do better than that if you're trying to freak me out.

Well, he didn't really have to try much longer. Because suddenly, less than half a minute after telling me we might have to hover for a while as the pilot looked for a clearing in the clouds below us, the side panel was lifting loudly, and the first skydiver was leaping into a freakin freezing free fall.

And I was next.

I am very happy to report that I do not have any video or photographic evidence of the terror on my face during the first few seconds of freefall. I don't think I felt that terrified. But I remember the muscles on my face freezing into a mush of terror and worry and oh my god, I can't breathe panic. It's cold air rushing past you. The initial tilt as you fall from semi-vertical to face first with nothing but cold grey unfriendly clouds beneath you. Not even beneath you. That would imply looking down toward your feet. No, this was like a stomach flop onto cold and blasting nothing. I breathed through a wide open mouth as if that would help. I'm fine with falling. Really. It's the turns and twists and anything but straight forward straight down that really messes with my head.

It was exhilarating!

My tandem guy had to mime opening my arms to me because I wasn't confident that the nudge on my shoulder was really him tapping me to tell me I could let my arms fly free. In hindsight I wish I'd done something ridiculous like flap my arms like a flailing bird. As it was, I yelled something that was incoherently gleeful.

The parachute opened and it was just tandem dude and me gliding down with gorgeous views over all three hundred and sixty degrees. Snow covered mountains (including Mount Doom) to the south. The lake larger than Singapore to the west. Farms and green all around. Tandem guy yelled, "Look! Baby cows!" and proceeded to tell me that he recently saw one cow giving birth and that it was cool. And disgusting. Tandem guy was highly amusing. I enjoyed him.

Looking all around me was beautiful. Looking directly down put our height in perspective and really really messed with my head.

"Wanna direct the parachute?" he asked.

YES.!!

So I stuck my hands underneath his in the loops. Yank down on the left to swirl left, yank down on the right to swirl right. Easy peasy!

It was fine and dandy until he took his hands out of the loops leaving my nervous hands completely in charge of the parachute.

"BAD IDEA!!!" I yelped!
"Well, it's your life," he said.
"Yeah, yours too!" I replied.
"Shit." (That would be him, not me. Though it would be an accurate representation of my sentiments as well.)

We were instructed to lift our legs up as we approached the ground. I was a bit over prepared and kept lifting my legs to a horizontal position too soon. In my defense, he told me to do so way too early just to mess with me. Most people did land on their feet. I didn't even try. It was butt down for me! After a second with my butt parked on the grass I yelped, "You mean I have to get up on my feet now on my own free will!?" As you can tell, yelping was a rather common occurrence today.

So I sat there on the ground for a bit longer, basking in the fall and glide until tandem guy laughed at me and yanked me to a standing position by way of my harness.

I skydovediveddidaskydivewheeee!

(They asked for your full name, so that's what I gave them. I figured it was in case you got maimed or died or something. I think it was just to make these things look more official. Ah well.)

My tandem dude Mikey H. obliged my shutterbugging tendencies. He also randomly had a pipe which I appropriated for the picture. It was fake.

The very sweet Lisa on the phone and at the front desk whispered conspiratorially to us about the existence of a YouTube video containing the aforementioned tandem dude, Mikey H (Michael Holmes), and a failed parachute. I YouTubed and Googled.

Turns out he survived a 12,000 foot free fall after his parachute failed to open. He waved goodbye to his camera as a farewell to life, crashed into a bush, and survived. 

Come to think of it, he did mention something about a man surviving a huge free fall after his  parachute failed. But we were kinda very high up in the air with a cap solidly over your ears where yelling loudly is no guarantee that all your words will be heard. I think he neglected to mentioned the rather important fact that this fail parachute dude was him.

So thank you nice phone-lady Lisa for not mentioning this to me before my skydive with my tandem dude whose parachute didn't open 2 years ago on a skydive from the same height that we did today.

Given that skydiving wasn't something I approached with great fear and trepidation (these horror stories did not make it to my ears until I was safely back in my hostel), I've decided that I need to go bungy jumping in Queenstown. Bungy jumping fills my heart with feaaar. Check back to see whether or not I go through with it.

And don't you dare send any bungy jumping horror stories my way.