Skydiving

The day had finally arrived when Todd, Alex, Anthony, Russel and myself headed out to the DC Skydiving Center.  The idea of skydiving was the brainchild of Alex, who wanted to go for his 21st birthday.  Things got busy, the price was a bit high and there were not enough people interested for the idea to take flight.  A few months ago, and four years later, LivingSocial had a deal so the five of us decided to take advantage of the 50% discount and take the plunge, so to speak.

While I had been nervous two weeks before (our original jump was canceled due to bad weather), I was fairly calm and collected before we headed off.  After checking in, I met my skydiving instructor who was a crazy Serbian who has been jumping for the past 20 years.  Thankfully the plane fit five so we were all able to go up together.   One by one people started falling out of the plane - I was second to last.

Most jumps are done at 3500 meters or 11,500 feet, but due to some planes in the area we had to keep climbing.  We finally leveled out at 4000 meters or just over 13,000 which is the highest altitude we would be able to jump at with the equipment we had on board.  For those of you who actually pay attention to the safety spiel before a plane takes off, at this height the oxygen masks would fall from the ceiling.

The height meant that we had 45 seconds drop until the parachute opened and we gracefully floated back down to the grassy runway.  The view definitely did not disappoint and the weather could not have been better.  I was surprised how little of an adrenaline rush I had by the time I landed which was something that I did not expect.  All five of us made it back in one piece with three of the guys taking home videos of their descent.

With landing in one piece I have crossed another thing off my 30 Before 30 list which means that I have 14 to go.  Three more will be crossed off by the time I arrive back to the East coast in August.