May 17

Hi everyone - now that I've come down from the high of flying, I can share with you my experience. Friday morning I woke up at 530am to take a train with 8 of my friends to the city. From there, we were shuttled into a town called Wollongong which is 2 hours away. After signing my death certificate and promising not to sue them after an accident, we all put on our jumpsuits. We then get our harnesses attached and prepare ourselves for departure. Right before we're about to leave, a women comes into the office and says in the most nonchallant voice, "Suzanne, what's that number again to call and report accidents?" The room goes dead silent and then we all start yelling. The woman cracks up and goes "whoops, I mean car accidents. I just saw a hit and run." That was not a smart business decision because we all can't stop freaking out. And no sooner after that occurs do they tell us its time to go. So we pile into a van and head to the airport. We meet our tandem divers and they give us a 3 minute briefing on what we're supposed to do upon take off and landing. 3 minutes of instruction and my life is on the line... great. Next thing I know, we're loading the plane. 17 people cram into this tiny jet and take off. Somehow I still wasn't scared and it didn't really occur to me what was about to happen. After 15 minutes of flying and at the height of 14,000 feet, the pilot shouts out "one minute" and the door opens. At that point it hit me and it hit me hard. Everyone starts screaming and one by one they drop like flies. My instructor inches us toward the door. I don't remember much about the first 5 seconds of freefall probably due to shock, but I know I was screaming on the top of my lungs. The entire drop you hear nothing because the wind is so loud. On the website it says you freefall for 60 seconds but I don't remember it feeling that long. The rest of the ride down took about 6 minutes. All in all, it was an incredible experience and something I just had to do once in my life. I posted lots of pictures onto my website and I have a DVD documenting the whole experience. And in case anyone is interested, if I recruit 4 people, I can go again for free... any takers?!