Never in my life did I think I'd ever go skydiving. Never had the desire to go and I certainly didn't think I'd have the guts to do it! But for some reason lately I've been thinking about it since I read an article in the Washington Post. I had hinted around to a few people about going, but all said "no way!" and I don't blame them. So when the weather forecast for Saturday September 6 looked perfect I scheduled an appointment at Skydive Orange. I didn't tell anyone I was going because if I chickened out I didn't need to worry about anybody giving me any crap. I arrived about 1/2 hour early at 9:30am Saturday morning. By 10am I was watching a short video and signing all kinds of liability release forms that basically said "you might die and you can't sue us." I did a tandem jump, which means you don't have much training to do because you are attached to someone who knows what they are doing.

Around noon we boarded the small plane full of about 20 anxious skydivers and embarked on our journey. I couldn't believe I was sitting in that plane watching my altimeter go from 0 to 13,000 feet. But sure enough, in about 10 minutes or so it was time to jump. There was no way I was going to chicken out at this point. I was near the back of the plane, so I had to nervously watch all but one tandem couple jump out. I would nearly be last. One of the hardest things I've ever done is step up to that plane door (I'm afraid of heights) and stare down 13,000 feet (2.6 miles) and anxiously wait for the count to go to zero! I even have a hard time watching the video. I think I closed my eyes briefly (as you can see in the pic below), but I opened them back up soon after jumping. At 13,000 feet there really is not much of a concept of height, but it still looked pretty damn scarey!

I paid a little extra to have another skydiver from Skydive Orange go along and take the pictures below as well as a video. I also have some additional pictures that I took with my camera on the ground.

New - I now have uploaded the video!