On Sunday, I went skydiving with Skydive Snohomish. ‚ Plato came up with the idea of going skydiving a while back and asked if I wanted to join him. ‚ We arrived at Skydive Snohomish at 3 pm and had the bad luck to be scheduled to go last that day, so we hung out till around 5:30 pm until it was our turn. ‚ The plane we skydived out of was pretty small and we were squished on the ride up, but it was well worth it when it came to leap out. ‚ I did a tandem jump, which meant that I had an instructor on my back. ‚
Right before we were about to jump, Plato shouted over the engine noise, “See you in hell!” ‚ I couldn’t hear what he had said, so the pilot turned to me and grinned and said, “He said good luck!” haha. ‚
Skydiving was quite a rush, but it was over fast. ‚ Leaping out of a plane and tumbling through the air 12,000 feet above terra firma is quite an experience. ‚ It took me a moment to remember to uncurl myself into the skydiving position (legs out and back and arms back… the goal is to use your limbs like streamers to keep your body stabilized as you fall). ‚ When I got myself into the correct position, the instructor did a couple of different spins before deploying the parachute. ‚ The actual freefalling experience was over really quickly… we fell for about 50 seconds then had our parachute deployed. ‚ Also, I had expected a huge shock when the parachute deployed but I actually barely noticed it, just a couple little bumps. ‚ The rest of the ride down to the ground took about 4 or 5 minutes and was pretty fun.
Once I was back on the ground, I walked over to Plato who was laughing hysterically and said that he had had an amazing time. ‚ I thought it was a fun thrill, but I’m not sure if I’ll pay another $250 to do it again. ‚ Actually, I paid an extra $25 to go up 2,000 feet higher from 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet… and after I was done I calculated out the cost and found out it was the most expensive 11 seconds of my life so far. ‚ (2000 feet divided by 176 feet per second fall rate = 11 seconds). ‚ $25 /11 = $2.2 per second = $8,100 per hour lol.
The worst part of the whole experience for me came later… I tend to get motion sickness and tumbling from 12,000 feet kind of messes with your equilibrium. ‚ It took me a couple of hours and a couple of drinks to get back to feeling normal again.
Anyways, it was an interesting life experience and I recommend skydiving to anyone who hasn’t gone yet. ‚ If you are interested in going to Skydive Snohomish, call 360-568-7703 to sign up. ‚ Please mention my name and I get $10 towards my next skydiving trip… and you get $10 off your skydive!!!