“If at first you don’t succeed, so much for skydiving” ~ Anonymous
I glanced up from my paperwork just in time to see a cluster of black drops exiting the airplane transform into brightly colored parachutes soaring through the sky.
With butterflies in my belly, I turned back to my mandatory reading—the Santa Barbara Skydive contract, a longwinded legal document basically stating that if something goes wrong, I get injured, or plummet to my death, I can’t sue.
As with most death defying adventures, the idea to skydive came to me in the form of a dare—followed by a quick phone call to Skydive Santa Barbara and a short drive to Lompoc airport. There I was, about to tandem jump out of an airplane at 14,000 feet.
For a first-time jumper, a tandem jump is the perfect introduction to the sport; it offers the thrill of flight without the responsibility—which is good because forgetting to pull the cord on time isn’t like forgetting to pay the phone bill.
A quick costume change into a one-piece pilot suit, followed by 30 minutes of ground training and my instructor and I were boarding the plane with 3 other tandem jumpers.
As the plane rose in altitude, the excited chatter between jumpers silenced. I imagine my fellow first-timers were having an internal dialogue quite similar to mine: “How’d I get talked into this? Why am I jumping out of an airplane? If I chicken out at the last minute, do I get my money back?” After about 10 minutes of utter silence, the plane reached 14,000 feet.
Time to jump!
One by one I watched people disappear from my view as they willingly fell from the plane into the sky. I shimmied to the opening with my instructor attached behind me. I stood at the doorway, took a good look at the checkered ground beneath, and began the ritual we had rehearsed during ground training, rocking back and forth until the count of three, then hurling ourselves out of the opening in a tucked position.
Tumbling through the sky at 120 miles per hour was nothing like a steep drop on a roller coaster; it felt like I was being suspended in the sky, by a steady stream of air pressure. The rushing air wobbled my cheeks and distorted my face. Before I could grasp a thought, the parachute opened and the loud noise of plummeting from the sky went silent. In that moment, the experience went from an exhilarating rush of adrenaline to a peaceful serenity as we effortlessly floated through the sky.
I was captivated by the unobstructed view of Central Coast beneath me: to the west, ocean; to the east, mountains; and straight below, a colorful patchwork of agriculture and commerce that grew larger and larger with every second of descent. It gave me a sense of just how small we are in comparison to the land we inhabit. The vastness of the ocean and shoreline out scales any skyscraper or structure man has built. Even the tallest building is just a speck from the sky above.
The ten minutes of peaceful descent came to a quick halt as we approached the landing zone. My belly began to rumble again knowing that landing is the part that can hurt. As we approached the ground beneath, I reminded myself to be calm, keep my feet up, and brace myself in case my instructor happened to land on top of me, cushioning any rough landing we may encounter, the only downfall of the front man position.
The landing went as smoothly as the flight. I was amazed at how we could go from darting to earth at 120 miles per hour to simply walking off the sky, back onto land. With two feet safely on the ground, an intoxicating mixture of relief and adrenaline shot through my body … followed by an overwhelming urge for a beer and a shot of tequila.