SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009
I finished out August by doing some tango dancing at Dance Downtown, a Belgian Beer Festival with some CouchSurfers, a big end of summer CS party, and then... skydiving!!!
Leo, Tamar, Konomi, and I joined my pal Elaine and her group for a trip to Skydive Santa Barbara. At Skydive SB, you can choose a 10,500ft, 13,000ft, or 18,000ft tandem jump. Over 90% of people choose the 13,000ft jump, but I decided that since it was my first (and possibly only) time, I'd go all out with 18,000ft which also happens to be the highest tandem skydive in the world. We got there early in the morning and watched a short video about how there's a really good chance we could get seriously injured or killed and they have absolutely no responsibility while signing and initialing a several page contract about 100 times. After suiting up in harnesses, and getting 5 minutes of training, we boarded the plane. We took off and started climbing into the sky. We seemed really high up when my instructed told me we were only at 5000ft and had a lot further to go. I wasn't all that scared or nervous since these guys jump several times per day and our instructors were really relaxed. As we gained altitude, we were given supplemental oxygen on the ride up because the 18,000ft jump is so high. Finally, when it was time to jump, we took off our oxygen masks, put on our goggles, opened up the door and basically fell off the side of the plane.
From 18,000ft you get about 90 seconds of freefall at over 120mph. The air is hitting you so hard, your skin feels like it's flying off your body and it can be a little hard to catch your breath. The only part that bothered me was my ears. The cold air was hitting my ears really hard and it was causing some pain and I actually feared that I was damaging my ears. I had a little pain for the rest of the day but it eventually went away. Maybe next time I'll look into ear protection. At around 5500ft, the parachute is pulled and you come to a very sudden stop and glide the rest of the way down. My instructor let me control the parachute for the ride down before taking over for the landing. We had a soft landing on our butts. Somehow I managed to get rocks in my underwear and also ripped my pants somewhere on the jump... maybe when the chute was pulled. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The ocean views were great and I think I'd do it again. It just happened all so fast and on your first trip you don't know what to expect so it goes by even faster. I think jumping a second time would be even more fun. I didn't pay for the video or pictures, but you can see some pics and vids of the jumps of FaceBook...
Elaine's Gallery
Leo's Gallery
Elaine's Video
