Skydiving

Skydiving is amazing!  I survived, but it was pretty scary for a minute there.  I wasn’t all that anxious until my tandem instructor opened the door to the airplane, and I could see the ground two miles below me.  I panicked for a moment, then the instructor pushed me out of the plane, and we started to fall.  The most surprising thing about free falling is that it doesn’t feel like falling, it feels like being pushed up by a big

 gust of air.  It was hard to breathe, and my hair was whipping around, but there was not stomach-drop the way there is on big roller coasters.

            Once we let the parachute out, the ride down was very peaceful.  We floated gently down to the landing site, and didn’t even have to run too much when we reached the ground.  I would love to do it again if I ever get the chance.

            Jason jumped right after I did.  The company videoed us as we fell, his video turned out great!  I haven’t seen mine yet, because it was

n’t ready when we had to leave, but they’ve promised to send it to me at the hostel.

            It was a long day for us.  I left the hostel at 8 am, met Jason at 8:30, and we got to Aero Parc de la Plata at about 9:30.  It would have been sooner, but there was a lot of waiting around for the other six people jumping today: a group of Israelis visiting BsAs for a few weeks.  (They were really nice, but mostly spoke to each other in Hebrew.)  Only one or two people can jump at a time, because the plane is small and each jumper needs a tandem instructor and a cameraman with him (or her).  Here’s a picture of the plane, maybe Pete can tell us what kind it is?  They had a bunch of planes at the aero park (I definitely saw a Cessna 172), but I forgot to ask what this one was.

            We were up in the air for about 30 minutes total, mostly in the plane.  We got about a minute of free fall, then about 10 minutes floating down with the parachute.  The harnesses are NOT comfortable, and they make you arch your back strangely, but it kept me alive, so whatever.  From the air, we could see BsAs, the oil refinery, and the edge of the Rio de la Plata.

            Well, I’m a lot poorer now, and very tired, but it was an amazing day over all.  I would highly recommend falling out of planes whenever possible!