Skydiving: Part Two

The whole week before skydiving I was getting pretty nervous. I even had my parents over for dinner on Saturday night for what we were jokingly calling (sort of) our last supper. We (Leah, Grant, Zach and I) set out early Sunday morning to make the six hour drive to Fort Atkinson, WI and made it with time to spare.

The second we got out of the car we spotted skydivers coming down and I immediately just felt more peaceful. Actually seeing people accomplish (and live through) what I was about to do was a great calming thing for me. As we went through the training and got suited up I only became more and more excited and less and less afraid.

Zach practicing

 My tandem professional's name was Patrick and he was absolutely wonderful. I was his 794th dive! Zach and I went up first in the plane and I was actually the first one to jump. The plane ride to altitude takes about 20-30 minutes but it did NOT feel that long. Despite being in a rickety prop plane that didn't even have seats and ascending to over 11,000 feet, it just really wasn't near as frightening as I expected. It felt completely unreal and I was just so pumped to jump! As soon as you jump out of the plane you are just free-falling for a full minute- just spiraling towards earth and it is so exhilarating. It was the perfect day to jump too, perfectly blue skies and nice warm weather. After that minute of free-fall the parachute was pulled and slowed our descent by far allowing me to just see for miles and miles and miles and take everything else in. I even got to steer! Patrick showed me how by pulling one arm down and raising another you could turn and if you keep holding it in this position you start doing spirals, very fun :) The absolute best part though was pulling both arms down at the same time and you just stop. Just stop falling, stop moving, stop everything and you are just hanging there in the sky. Breathtaking.

The landing was smooth and just like that we were skydivers!

This is definitely an experience I would love to repeat. I really have a strong desire to jump in a tropical location where I can jump over the ocean, I think that would be so spectacular.

"DON'T LET FEAR CONTROL YOUR LIFE, YOU CONTROL YOUR FEAR! DON'T LET ANYTHING OR ANYONE (ESPECIALLY YOURSELF) ALLOW YOU TO MISS OUT ON AN OPPORTUNITY OR YOU MAY REGRET IT THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. DON'T THINK-JUST DO IT!" - Jordan Rabenstein ;)

JORDAN