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Published: February 20th 2008
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Getting picked up for the skydive
Me excited to get going to our skydive! I got back on the Stray bus after spending a couple of days in Rotorua, and went down to Taupo. The weather was pretty good when we got into town and there did not seem like there was much going on around town that afternoon. I decided to go and try an activity that Taupo is famous (maybe infamous) for. I decided to do a SKYDIVE! Yep.
Taupo has the cheapest skydiving in New Zealand (although skydiving is not a cheap thing to do), so a lot of people do a skydive in Taupo. I booked it through the bus with a group of other people. We got picked up in a limo from our hostel and driven to the Taupo airfield. We got off the bus and immediately were ushered into a room to see a film. The film was a video of another person's skydive. After the film we had to tell them two things. The first decision was whether to jump from 12,000 feet or 15,000 feet. Easy. Go big or go home. The next decision was whether we wanted to get a video of our skydive. A little tougher decision since the video was not that
Me and Reno on the ground
Waiting to board the plane with my jump partner. cheap. I decided, what the...Might as well get the video as a souvenier.
So we get suited up in our jumpsuit and harness, following their directions to a T. Then my tandem guy shot a little video intro with me and the place we left from. We were all a little apprehensive waiting for the experts to get ready and come usher us onto the plane. We all piled on the plane with our jump partners, in the opposite order we were going to jump. Since three of us decided to jump from 15,000 feet, we had to get in first. The plane goes to 12,000 feet and those people jump, and then we go to 15,000 feet for our turn.
It took a while to get to the jump altitude. We had been going up for what seemed like forever and I asked my jump partner how high we were. He showed me on his altimeter that we were at 5,000 feet and he told me that he would be opening the chute about at this altitude. Wow. So up we continued. After a while longer, a green light at the back of the plane went on
Group shot on ground
Group shot while waiting for our skydive. and the guys pulled open the plastic door in the side of the plane. The first five tandem jumpers fell out of view, two by two. Holy crap. We pulled the door closed again and continued up. After another long time going up further (at least in my mind), the green light came on again. We opened the door and the first tandem got ready to jump out of the plane. The guy was sitting on the edge of the plane with his feet out of the door when the red light went back on. His jump partner crawled both of them back into the plane and closed the door. We circled a while longer before the green light came back on. This was the worst part of the whole experience for me. I remember thinking - screw this - let's just jump out of the damn plane now. Enough waiting. The anticipation was driving me crazy.
The green light came back on and we opened the plastic door again for our jump. The person ahead of me jumped out of the plane and out of view. And then it was my turn. I waddled my way to the
Me and Reno in the plane
Me and my tandem in plane on the way to 15,000 feet! door and stepped out of the airplane. However, we did not go out of the plane right away since the guy was on my back and was still in the airplane. Weird feeling. And then we were airborne.
The initial feeling of falling / jumping out of the plane is indescribable. An immediate rush of feelings and adrenaline. The best part of the jump! The freefall for a 15,000 feet jump is a little over a minute. I had heard that the freefall goes quickly, but it did not seem so short to me. It was great. Looking down and feeling the air as you are falling was pretty unique. After a decent amount of time, I noticed that my tandem guy was moving his arms around. I figured it was about time to open the chute. Sure enough, a couple of seconds later, we came to what seemed like an abrupt stop and we were a little unstable while the chute engaged. Again, pretty cool. Then it was a nice relaxing journey down and we were able to check out the views. Great views of Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand. We could also see the
Still in the air
Me parashooting back down. Tongariro Crossing, which is a hike on a volcano that I was hoping to do the next day. What a feeling.
After safely arriving on stable ground, I went inside to get out of my harness and jumpsuit. It was a little tough to do as my legs, and whole body really, were shaking still. The three of us that had jumped from 15,000 feet went over and met up with the rest of the crew that had taken the limo over with us. Everyone still had perma-smiles on their faces from their jumps. The euphoric feeling did not go away for quite some time.
Wow, it was amazing.
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Lenz
non-member comment
awesome
weeg! glad you decided to ski dive. so jealous man. also glad you decided to use a chute! cheers