Awesomeness Redefined

In August 2009, I'd gone for a trek to Hemkund Sahib, the religious Sikh shrine. It's located at an altitude of 14,000 ft! Whilst enjoying the view from the top, I actually wondered how much time it would take for one to free fall from such an altitude. Assuming uniform gravity and no drag, the time turns out to be roughly 30 seconds. That is it!

Fast forward to September 2009, and I am about to sky dive from an airplane at 14,500 ft! So on 27th September, my friend and I decided to go skydiving. We booked a slot for 2 pm, the charges were $322 per person ($190 for the dive + $90 for the video + $44 service charges). We rented a car (none of us had ever driven in the US before!) and headed off for Wisconsin! It was a 50 mile drive and using Google Maps on our blackberry, we somehow managed to reach the place only to find out that due to bad weather, skydiving was on stay. We waited for a few hours, after which we were issued rain checks valid for a year! The disappointment was obvious but there was hope as I had one more free weekend in US!

The weather got worse during the week but the prediction for Sunday was good. I convinced two other friends of mine and we rented a car again and this time left at 9 in the morning! We reached there at 10 only to find out that the skydiving is on hold again coz of bad weather! As time passed by, hope started diminishing. We had lunch and then coffee, by now it was 4 pm and we were hoping against hope. The clouds seemed to hover exactly above us, everywhere else the sky was blue! Seemed like I was destined for it. Just as we were about to give up and head back, the weather cleared up! We were drinking our coffee and the next thing we knew, we were all geared up and inside the airplane.

I did get a scare the first time I saw the ground from 14,500 ft and I said to myself, what the heck! But there was no stopping from there on. Ready, steady go and there I was, falling freely under the influence of gravity! The first few seconds were literally free fall! I had no clue which side was earth and which side was the sky. All I knew was that I had an instructor along with me and if not for my life, at least he would want to save his own life. That was my consoling factor! After 2-3 seconds of falling free and tumbling around in the sky (now I can imagine what birds would feel like), the instructor deployed the primary parachute and things became stable all of a sudden.

Once the primary parachute is deployed, the instructor makes you go round in circles and performs some other maneuvers. In the meantime, the video guy is capturing all of this live! You are falling @ 200 kph and the only adjective that comes close to describing this experience is 'awesome'. Right below me (10,000 ft below), I could see the run way. In the far background, was the beautiful and serene Lake Michigan. I just felt like this should never end. Flying is the best thing that can ever happen to mankind!

By the time we reached 4,000 ft, I was supposed to pull the trigger for the main canopy to open. In the excitement of it all, I forgot. But then, what was the instructor there for. After all, I did pay him $200 for something, right? So he pulled the canopy and all of a sudden, I felt a jerk and the free fall stopped! I felt as if I have switched from a Ferrari F1 car to a Maruti 800! Paragliding seemed like peanuts in front of sky diving. And as is the case with all good things, even this came to an end after a few minutes of gliding around.

So there I was, with my feet firmly on the ground (:D), literally! This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and you have to experience it to understand what I mean! I am sure that even if I go for skydiving again, it won't be the same as the first time; but still I would wanna do it again. So all ya adventure buffs, what you waiting for? Go out there and jump!

To watch a video of this awesome skydiving experience, click here.