Sky dive!!!!

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We were to be picked up at 9am today from the lobby of our hostel to go for a skydive!!! (yeah we didnt tell mum what we were doing before we had done it!! and sorry Pam - dont know if your reading this, but you only told us not to do a bungee jump, you never mentioned skydiving!!!)
We were both a bit nervous, but Marcello picked us up, and we had to go and pick up two more people who were going to do a skydive too. On the way to pick up the other two Marcello showed us a video of two people doing a skydive on his ipod. This made me feel a little less nervous as the 2 people doing it were smiling all the way through, and it didnt look that scary!!!
We then picked up Eli and Rafi, 2 Israelis. When we were all in the car Marcello then told us that we would be driving about 100km away from Buenos Aires for the jump, and that we would be picking the pilot up on the way, and that we would be there in about an hour and a half so we could sleep on the journey if we wanted to!!

When we arrived at the place to do the skydive, there were a lot of Police there who were training, and one other woman who was doing a tandem dive, Marcello told us that she was going up next, and that it would be about half an hour before we would be going up. We were told who we would be jumping with, I was to be with Ariel and Gill would be with Pablo. We were also going first out of the four of us!!! Sitting round waiting to go up made me feel a little more nervous, but then watching the woman land before us made me feel fine, it looked so cool!!!!

Gill and I both hadnt taken jumpers with us as it was a warm day, forgetting that we would be jumping out of a plane where it would be about 5 degrees and very windy!! Ariel gave me his fleece to wear, and Marcello found Gill a jumper to put on, we had thought we would have been given a jumpsuit to dive in, but we weren't!
We both had cameramen that were going to be jumping at the same time as us to video our jump and to take photos at the same time. He videoed us being put into the harness and then us getting into the plane as well as the actual jump. I got into the plane first with Ariel and my cameraman (dont know his name!!) which then meant that Gill would be jumping first as she was next to the door!! It took quite a while to get to the right height that we would be jumping from, and the view out the plane was amazing!! It was then that it finally hit me how high up we were, and that we were about to jump out to get back to the ground!!! I was really exited although at the same time really scared!!! The plane was the same size as the one we had taken a flight over the Nazca lines in, although this time there was only a seat for the pilot! We were all sat on the floor of the plane, was a bit of a tight squeeze fitting us all in!!
When it got closer to the time we were going to jump, Ariel told me to sit on his lap, and he then attached my harness onto his, and Pablo did the same to Gill. We were both given a helmet/hat thing to wear which had horrible plastic goggles attached to them, you couldnt see through them very clearly as they were a bit cloudy. I was also given gloves, although they were a bit big so i was a bit scared that they were going to get blown off by the wind!!
The guys told us that when it came to the time when we would be jumping, the cameraman would go first, and we would follow. We jumped at about quarter past twelve! The cameraman got out of the plane onto the ledge, and we got ready to jump, we jumped moments after each other so they could film us leaving the plane. We were told we would stand on the step at the edge of the plane and then jump, we were told to make sure we kept our hands on our harness, and when we were in freefall we would be told we could open up our arms. As Ariel and I jumped out, he then made us flip in the air! for these first few seconds it was horrible!!!! Then we went into freefall and it felt great!! i didnt expect to do a flip at the start, Gill didn´t and it was really scary!!
We were freefalling for about 35seconds i think, dont know exactly on the time, but in the car on the way, Rafi had asked Marcello how long the freefall was, and he said that it wasnt allowed to open the parachute any lower down than 1000metres as they we´re jumping with a parachute with a surface area of about 400 square metres whereas if you are jumping alone it would only be about 200 square metres. He said we would fall to that height in about 35 seconds, it might have taken us a bit longer than that to reach as we are lighter than most people doing it!
We signalled goodbye to the cameraman and he dived down lower than us, and we opened our chutes and he carried on freefalling for a while before opening his. This was so he could film us landing.
Then the parachute was opened at 1000metres. It feels really weird as you suddenly start shooting back into the air instead of falling, it also starts really hurting your legs as the harness is pulled upwards. This subides after a little while, and you just feel like your hanging in the air as you arent moving very fast. Ariel then pointed out that it was really quiet. You dont realise quite how high you are until you look down and see the trucks on the road below you. Ariel showed me every so often how high we were on the altimeter (if thats what you call something that measures the altitude). Ariel then told me that it would be 5 minutes before we reached the ground. He took the goggles off for me, and checked that i was alright!! Gill also had her goggles taken off by Pablo. They were on a cord which was attached to the back of the hat so wouldn´t fall off. They were so tight on though we both had marks where they had been on our faces!
They were steering the parachute by pulling on cords, guiding us down to the landing site which was in the place where we had taken off from. We were both watching the ground and then were pointed out to each other! We hadn´t looked up enough to see each other!!! We were a distance away from each other, but both at the same height. Ariel then did a few more turns, taking us lower than Gill and Pablo so we would land first! Both of the cameramen were already on the ground ready to film and help us land. We were told that when we landed we had to lift up our legs and keep our knees bent, ready to run when we landed! When we touched down the cameraman ran in and pulled on a cord to make the air go out from in the parachute, so it wouldn´t be taken by any gusts of wind. We both landed at a standstill, and were then taken back a bit. Gills cameraman wasn´t quite as quick in so they were taken back quite a bit by a gust of wind before the chute was brought to the ground!!! They unstrapped us as soon as we landed so we could stand up. They released some of the straps a bit so it was easier to walk, and we chatted to each other while the guys and the cameramen gathered up the chutes and took them back into the hanger. They just lay them out on the floor, ready to sort out later. We landed at about half twelve so the whole jump had taken less than fifteen minutes! They took the harnesses off us. We had a bit of time before Eli and Rafi went up as we had to wait for the plane to land again. We both told them what we thought of it before they were strapped into the harnesses. They both had taken cameras with them so we took photos for them and when they took off we relaxed watching the plane climb higher, waiting to see them jump out. When it was only a speck in the sky we saw four little things jump out which we knew was them. Was cool to watch them get closer, knowing what it felt like for them! We took more photos for them as they came into land.
After a while the guy came out with mine and Eli´s dvds and cd of photos from their jump, which we watched the dvd on a tv they had, and while we were watching, Gill and Rafi got their dvds from their cameraman. Their cameraman took ages to finish doing the cd´s. Marcello brought them out to us, and explained it took so long as it was an old man trying to use a new computer!!!! We only had enough time to briefy check their cd´s worked before we had to go. Me and Eli had both been able to look at all our photos. We had to leave as Rafi wanted to try and get back to go to the bank in Buenos Aires before it shut at four. In the end we didn´t make it back in time, but we dropped both of them off so they could go and change money and Marcello dropped me and Gill at our hostel.
Was definatly worth the hundred quid it cost and we would both love to do it again! Not sure we´d ever attempt it not strapped onto someone else though, would be far too scary on your own!!!!

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Photos

Gill about to jump out
just realised quite how high we were about to jump out at!

Comments

[Phil]

Join the club
Yay, now I'm not the only one Mum's annoyed with for skydiving! Looks like you enjoyed it a little more than me though... Phil