What comes up.. must come down...

Last weekend, me and my college friends went up north to celebrate Ollie's birthday and to do the most adventurous experience I've ever had... SKYDIVING. Actually, all of us never tried it to before so we're all excited. I took Archie with me and he was accompanied by his friend, Eric. Since they're both coming from West LA, we didn't need to meet Ollie & Co at Tins' place. Also, the group that's coming from Tins' has to leave at 5am.. I'm still dreaming around that time.. hehe =P Anyways, on our way to Lompoc from Solvang, we got lost coz yahoo map sucks!! We followed the direction from yahoo map but we didn't see 'H St' that will lead us to the airport.. Anyways, we got there at 9ish and I met Tins and John on their way to the landing zone to meet Mads, Kelly and Tes after their jump. They're only 9 brave individuals who'll jump and we're the last group (since we're late).

We watched the 15minute video of tandem skydive that shows us what to expect and what to do in case an accident occurs. I had second thoughts of doing it after watching the video. Archie noticed that I'm so pale.. But what the heck, it's a once in a lifetime experience and so I told myself.. I can do it.. My instructor helped me setup my harness and he told me that he's gonna be my bestfriend for the next 30minutes..=P He showed me the "arch" position of jumping from a plane. He also explained that the acceleration of gravity is about 10 meters per second. That means if you were falling in a vacuum you'd reach 1,000mph within 9.5 seconds. But, of course, we're not in a vacuum. What makes skydiving possible is air resistance, which provides an equalizing force to check a body's acceleration. This limits a skydiver's "terminal velocity" to around 120 miles per hour when the diver is in the arched, belly-down position.

The last four words I heard from my instructor was: three-two-one-jump!

"Scared" doesn't accurately describe the feeling that precedes my first jump. It's closer to sheer terror. As the door in the side of the plane opened, I screamed coz I'm right beside the door of the plane and I'm the first jumper of the group. My heart beats so fast and I prayed really hard that I'll be safe. My mouth goes completely dry, I can't hear anything (even my scream) and my eardrum's like gonna pop up.

The 60 second free fall from 13,000 feet was awesome. My instructor told me that I'm doing good. I told him I can't breath and he said coz I'm nervous and I should just relax. So I did.. I kept waving to my cameraman but it's really hard to do the "arch" position so most of my shots are faced down =P

The seven to eight minute canopy ride from 5,000 feet was awesome too coz I get to see the panoramic view of the earth. It's very peaceful up there. We had a graceful landing.. I'm ALIVE!!! It's good to be back where I belong.

Click here for bigger image

I received a certificate signed by my instructor and the video of my jump. I chose Alive by POD and Elevation by U2 as my background music ;)

*I've been planning this event since last year (check 2004 To Do List). Thanks Ollie for oranizing it.

.. to be continued (JALAMA BEACH)