Skydiving 2014

For my 30th birthday Lloyd gave me Skydiving vouchers and we didn't get a chance to use it until Aug 2014.  The town we jumped from was called Salisbury (and no, they don't know what a Salisbury steak is...I asked!) and we took the train out, planning to spend the day there.  The beginning of the day had lots of clouds so we just sat around reading and hanging out then in the afternoon the sun came out, the clouds parted just in time for us to get suited up!  Funnily enough Lloyd had gotten us the 'deluxe' package, which meant that we jumped from an additional 5,000 feet higher (total of 15,000 feet) giving us additional time to freefall, which is apparently the exciting part that everyone loves the most!

It was really scary being strapped into our instructor and then getting in a rickety old plane with nothing to sit on inside but benches.  The folks from 10,000 feet got dropped off first so we got to watch the whole process from the door opening (terrifying in mid-air!!) to each person jumping out.  Then they closed up the door and flew up for another 10 minutes to get us to our desired jump height.  The minute they opened the door my heart was pounding and I knew there was no turning back since I was literally strapped to someone.  The instructor has you keep your head back as we edge towards the door, probably to keep people from looking down and chickening out, and before I knew it we were tumbling out of the plane!  At first it was disorienting because I saw the ground upside down and rightside up and it felt topsy turvy, but it was such a rush of adrenaline and as soon as I realised that I was in the right position and we were stabilised and free-falling, I was able to enjoy it.  Both Lloyd and I had a cameraman photographing us with the GoPro and unfortunately Lloyd's video cut out a few seconds into his freefall.  This was disappointing because his cameraman was holding hands with his instructor rather than jumping out separately, so they got a few seconds of awesome footage of his face as he was jumping out.

Once we pulled the parachute we were able to just fly around and glide as we came down and our instructors gave us control of the handles to do some spins and turns.  My instructor told me he had never jumped with anyone who screamed the entire time, all the way through, haha.  The English countryside looked beautiful and our instructors pointed out castles, ancient ruins, fields, and all kinds of lush greenery, making for a relaxing journey back down to earth.

When we landed we were still feeling the rush and promised each other that we'd do it again, except next time we want to skydive over the beach!

Until next time...