Knees up by your ears...

What a way to bring in 2008 - a tandem skydive from 12,000 ft with Auckland Skydive! My friend Mer gave me a voucher for my 30th - she always likes to push me!! I was pretty cool about it all until I actually geared up - this photo doesn't show the anxious forced smile that it was!! But maybe it's been lightened by the humour of wearing a dodgy leather helmut - I felt like Snoopy. I was pleased to have slightly more safety gear on since I was always going to compare this to bungy jumping (80metre jump in 1997) - I only got a wide piece of velcro around my ankles that time. A pretty blue mechanics suit and complicated harness was reassuring.








So I couldn't actually afford the photographer ($165!!!) or video ($245!!!) so CH took some photos from the ground. I jumped in a tiny plane and squashed into a crouching position with 4 other blokes. At 5,000 ft the guy I was to tandem with grabbed my legs and they opened the door - a bit worrying since I wasn't even strapped onto him. Then the guy next door to me who had his glasses held onto his head with a series of rubberbands shot out the door - a parachute jumper - opens his chute instantly with no freefall. Another 10mins and we were at 12,000ft. I lay backwards on top of the tandem guy while he hooked us up; then we scuttled a couple of feet like a big blue crab and swooshed out the door before I could ask "was I meant to sign the bodily injury waiver". The freefall of about 50sec rocked! We were spinning around like Cirque de Sol acrobats. With spit flying out my mouth for africa on one hand it felt really fast but looking below me, going through the cloud cover and seeing the patchwork fields - it didn't seem fast. I guess you are at such a height there's no vertigo as the land doesn't seem like it's getting any closer.



Then he let the chute go and I swear it felt like we were suddenly travelling upwards - but it was just the fact the other parachuters were still freefalling at about 120mph whereas we had slowed to about 15mph. We circled around in the air for about 5mins and this was so quiet and lovely - I'm so going to try hang-gliding next to get the same buzz!







About 30sec before we landed he told me he was going to put me down on my bum and to get my knees up around my ears. Hmmmm ... yes ... damn difficult normally but even harder since the harness had cut the circulation off in my legs and felt like stuffed pillows. So he got me down and quite frankly I could have sat down harder - it was gentle!!

So here I am afterwards trying to get my stuffed-pillow-legs walking back to base. The other guy in the photo is one of the company's pilots and he took a little video of me on his private helmut-cam = I'm now trying to stalk him to see if I could get a copy, on the sly without having to pay the company's normal fee of course!!

In summary skydiving is far more enjoyable than bungy jumping and I would definately do it again - Mer, note for future terrific pressies ;0) . But maybe just tandem - I'm not keen to have to concerntrate on things like pull ropes or actually take the jump from the plane myself. Highly recommended too anyone as there's no effort required on your part - in fact I think the guy gave me only 3 simple instructions the whole time: hands on your chest & legs bent, knees up by yours ears & ROCK ON!