Jump

I jumped out of an airplane on Saturday.

I've always wanted to do it. I'm not really a daredevil. But I wanted to know what it felt like. And now I know.

Toby's 30th birthday provided the excuse. He invited me and a few others. I couldn't say no. I was doing it. No matter what.

Almost everyone else he invited somehow befell some sort of problem that prevented them from making it. Go figure. So he and I drove up to to Byron on our own and met two of his old friends there.

During the drive up there, we were getting a little anxious for what we were about to do, Toby especially. I really had no idea what my reaction would be once it was time for me to face the open door in the plane. I actually packed an extra pair of underwear in my backpack - just in case.

Byron, which is near Tracy just passed Livermore, is a desert. It doesn't resemble the rest of the bay area to me at all. When we arrived at the small private airport and opened the door, the 100 degree air was a shock to us both. Luckily I had also packed some shorts and flipflops.

The skydiving company is essentially a hangar with carpeting and gear and is full of people packing parachutes and nervous-looking people waiting around on couches. Occasionally some jump-suited, wide-eyed, jittery folks would stagger in with big smiles to change their clothes, sign the log book, and thank the employees before leaving.

We chose to do a tandem jump. It requires next to no training (about 25 seconds) and you have the peace of mind knowing your life is in the hands of an experienced professional. All you have to do is fall - which is easy.

After a couple of hours of waiting around watching folks continuously drop out of the sky right in front of the hanger, it was finally our turn. We were the last group of the day. By that time, our nervousness had waned and we just wanted to get up in the air.

We made our way out to the 12 person airplane, which only seats 12 if you stack yourselves in there like Pringles. After take off, all of the experienced people cheered. Apparently the take off is the most dangerous part of the trip. In a few minutes, we had climbed to 14,000 feet, high enough to see San Francisco in the distance and to peek over the Sierras as well - in other words, very very high.

One by one, people would get up and stand in the doorway with their butts out the door, holding on to the top of the door frame. Then, whoosh! they were gone! This was the point I had most worried about my own reaction. Funny thing was - I wasn't afraid at all. Knowing I had Vic, my jumping partner, taking care of me was very soothing.

We were the last ones out of the plane. He walked me up to the door where I stood hanging out the opening, strapped to his belly. I held on to my harness straps and he rocked me forward and backward three times... One, two, Go! For about the first two seconds, my body struggled to figure out this unprecedented situation, and quickly the feeling of panicked falling turned into a feeling of flying or riding. The 120 mph freefall lasted about one minute, enough to drop about 10,000 feet or about 2 miles. It was a fun ride.

The view jumping out looked something like this

Then Vic pulled the rip cord. The jolt wasn't as hard as I expected, although the harness was pretty tight around my legs. After our chute opened, he loosened me up and it was more comfortable. I can't describe how serene the rest of the ride down was. The difference between television pictures and the true-life view coming down toward earth is indescribable. Looking down at my dangling feet while floating down toward the ground felt like being delivered by the stork.

Then, on our way down, Vic let me know very calmly that we were going to land "somewhere else". I thought maybe the wind was blowing us off course and he was having trouble getting back to the hangar. But he explained that one of my friends' main chute had not opened properly and had to be cut away. Their reserve chute had opened and they were fine. It turns out that it was Toby's old roommate, Ekart. Our task at hand was to retrieve the chute they had cut away. That was fine with me. I rather enjoyed landing out in the countryside in a cow pasture. The landing was perfectly gentle and we even missed a giant cow pie I had my eye on by about six inches.

I unhooked and he instructed me to walk up the hill to retrieve a small parachute and then down a little further to pick up the larger one. He had scoped out the surrounding roads so he knew which way to walk. We lugged all the gear about 200 yards to the nearest road, which was really a long driveway to a farmhouse. He said he didn't have a radio, but that the others had seen where we landed and a truck would be by to pick us up soon. They didn't. Apparently we were tougher to reach then he thought.

After a half hour or so of waiting in the heat, I was ready to just walk the mile or so back to the airport which we could see from where we were. He was concerned about leaving his expensive equipment by the road. I wasn't nearly so concerned about his equipment. After a while longer, he got very irritated that no one had shown up and decided to leave the equipment and cross a long expanse of dry brush, cow pasture, and barbed wire to get to the airport. I decided against that plan and told him I'd walk down the road and to send someone for me. Off he went at a full jog toward the airport.

I only got about 200 yards down the road, when the trucks showed up. We gathered up the gear and they took me back to my friends who were a few beers ahead of me by that time.

During the whole process, I kept being reminded of movies where military men dropped into foreign territory, not so different than Byron. To those men, the ride down wasn't the end of their adventure. They were in unfamiliar territory with unfriendly residents to look out for.

My lasting sentiment during the whole journey was how grateful I was to have such a nice ride without having to worry about anyone shooting at me when I got down. Even though most days I take that for granted, that day I didn't.