"I went Skydiving, I went...?"

Hello everyone... well well well.. if you haven't heard already, let me tell you. Abby and I did the un-thinkable on Friday. We went skydiving! That's right people, Abby and I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,000 feet. The reason for our madness, well it's a long story. When Abby and I first started dating, we did the.. you know, likes and dislikes game to find out more about one another. We discussed how both of us wanted to try skydiving, at least once in our lifetime. That same year, for my birthday, Abby surprised me with a voucher for 1 tandem skydive adventure to be used anywhere in the country. I was so thrilled. She mentioned at the time that she was unsure about whether or not she would go, but I knew I had time to convince her. At that time I weighed a little over 240 lbs. (I was chunky) I called up one skydiving place and they told me that their weight limit was 240 lbs. Let's just say I wasn't about to test fate while testing the weight limits. I decided to wait and go some other time. Well, about a year and a half later, I'm still chunky but only 216 lbs of chunk and knew I could now use my voucher with confidence. This voucher had a 2 year expiration date, so the time was approaching. I looked up the places to cash in said voucher and sure enough there was a sweet skydiving facility about 30 miles south of Houston called Skydive Spaceland. I called them and made the appointment. We were originally scheduling to go last Wednesday, but it was to windy in the Houston area. We decided to push the testing fate back to Friday.
Friday is upon us and I had to wake Abby up early to get there by 11am, our scheduled jump time. We arrive and fill out lots and lots of paperwork that continuously said how we can't sue for damages, i.e. DEATH or SERIOUS BODILY HARM! Abby and I were not amused, but knew we had to sign and sign and sign away. After finishing all the paperwork we watched a 30 minute video about how we were putting our lives at risk and how we can't sue skydive spaceland. So not only did we have to read pages and pages of information about this, this guy also spent a good 10 minutes of the 30 minute skydiving instructional video explaining possible death. SWEET! We finished up the video to learn that our jump time was being pushed back due to high gusting winds. A little knowledge for all you skydiving novices. Certain facilities will only allow jumps if the wind gusts are below 30 m.p.h. Certain skydivers will only jump if the wind gusts are below a certain level. Some require below 25 mph, others 30 mph and some brave 35mph gust. We later learned it all has to do with the landing part of the jump and how experienced your instructor is at landing with such gusts. So, when there is a measured gust of wind greater than 30mph, you have to wait 30 minutes from that point without having another gust of wind greater than 30mph. Make sense? These 30 minute increments were testing on the psyche! We waited a few rounds of 30 before we had confirmed lift off. Not only was this our first time, but we also had the enjoyment of having to deal with gusty winds. A sure fire way to increase our already apprehensive minds.
Finally we get the call. Will all skydivers jumping at said time please report to so and so area. This is it... Time to get ready to jump. We suited up, took some pictures, filmed some scenes, listened to all the tandem skydivers tease Abby about how her suit was unsafe, and after some last minute pep talks we were off to the plane. Said Video (scenes) will be up as soon as we figure out how to burn what's on our dvd onto the computer.
The plane is taxing as 4 tandem groups, and 3 videographers pile into this tiny plane. Abby and her partner are in first, I'm in second. We sit side by side as the other groups join us. We are jammed into this small plane. Nuts on butts is a fair term for most of the groups! The bay door closes and we are off. We take off on the runway heading up to 14,000 feet. We joke some more on the way up, trying to shake off the nerves. We film some more video, take more pictures, the time is near.... Our instructors begin to attach us to themselves joking that they hope they have done a good job. "Not funny dude!" We run through our responsibilities one last time. Abby tells her instructor, "I'm not jumping out of the plane, you are going to have to push me!!!" "No problem," her instructor tells her with a laugh.
"60" the pilot yells out. 60 seconds until we reach 14,000 feet. 60, 59, 58, 57 my mind starts to count. The bay door opens and we all get this rush of cold air upon us. Man it was cold!!! The first couple of groups begin to jump. "I love you Abby," I yell. "I love you too," Abby says. We grab hands and give each other one last kiss! Our instructors tell us to grab hold of our harnesses as they proceed to push us closer to the door. Abby goes slightly ahead of me. I watch her get closer and closer to the bay door. There she is standing at the edge! Her instructor begins to yell, 1, 2, and 3...... "GO ABBY!!!!" I yell and she "gets pushed" out of the plane! She begins to fall and fall and fall as I creep up to the bay door. It's my turn! The wind is howling around us, which makes it hard to hear. 1, 2, and 3.......
I jump and begin to flip all over the place. I don't know where I am. Am I up, am I facing down, "where am I!" I am soon tapped on the shoulders by my instructor which signals that it is okay for me to let go from my harness and assume the "flying position." Hands out to the side in a 90 degree angle. Also at this time I am suppose to push my pelvis downward kicking my legs back. I didn't remember to do that. I was also suppose to check my altimeter. didn't do that either. Are you kidding me with all this crap! I just jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet and i'm looking straight down at the EARTH... I begin to realize that I was falling at around 120mph. The wind was flying up my nose, (you can only imagine what kind of cold air was going up this huge nose) I had to concentrate on breathing, and I was freezing! It was honestly very hard to breath. I continue to yell in excitement. The camera guy is flying down with us trying to capture my fall. He approaches me and I give him a high five! I try to pull a superman pose, but quickly go back to the "falling position" in fear of sending us in a tumble. What a rush! I finally remember to check my altimeter (which I was suppose to check every 10 seconds or so). I think I remember for the first time about 30 seconds into my free fall. 9000 feet, 8000 feet, 7000 feet... At this point I am suppose to fixate on the altimeter because time to pull the chute is 6000 feet! Thank God I remembered this much! At 6000 feet I am suppose to wave off the camera guy to signal my need to pull the chute! Oops I forgot... Right arm back, "where is the knob, where is the knob..." I found it. PULL, PULL... It is a lot harder to pull then I thought. At this point I thought to myself, "surely my instructor is helping me out." (come to find out by the video that he DIDN'T help me pull the cord. He was saluting for the camera! Sorry joker) 5000 feet! I GOT IT... I quickly felt the cord release and away the chute goes! "PLEASE OPEN," I thought to myself... This is it.. Live or Die! At that point I felt us quickly slow down. I look up, and what did I see....? The most beautiful picture in the world. One beautiful fully extended parachute! PRAISE GOD! As Jonesy once said, "I defeated Death!" haha... Almost 1 full minute of free falling has come to an END!
I went from falling at 120+ mph (I give it a plus because I was the last to jump out of the plane, but the first to land. I was moving!)
Once the chute opened, it was a completely different feel. You could hear, it was peacefully calm, it was warm... What a difference! My instructor and I just chatted about skydiving and life. It was awesome. After about 5 minutes of descending, trying to steer the parachute (harder than it looks), and enjoying the peace and quiet, it was time to prepare to land. We went through a quick recap and then it was game time. Here we go... approaching approaching approaching... We push down on the parachute to slow us all the way down, planning on landing on our feet.... well we didn't slow down and we didn't land on our feet.. CRASH.. right on my coccyx! I mean we ate it hard! We come sliding in landing right on top of an ant hill. Thank God I did what I was suppose to (keep my legs and feet straight out in a pike position) or else I would have broken my legs. The people who were helping with the landings (because it was so windy) quickly began gaining control of our parachute and then all I hear is, "GET UP GET UP, You are sitting on an ant hill." haha.. Some lady started slapping my butt! YEAH BABY! ;) We quickly got on our feet and rejoice with glee! My feet and coccyx hurt, but I was so pumped from the entire jump that I didn't care! I made it.... I quickly run through a post jump interview with my videographer while trying to locate Abby! "Here she comes," I thought to myself. She too made it... A successful jump! What do I see with Abby's landing, you might ask? Well, she and her partner landed safely on their feet as if they were landing on a pillow! What happened to me was this. You remember way back in my story where I talked about the gusts of wind? Well, let's just say I hit one of those gusts which held us up and then "dropped us!" Or at least that's what the other people said. They told me it rarely happens! Well thank God it happened to me! What and experience!
I ran over to Abby and gave her a huge hug and kiss... We starting reliving our experiences with one another... "We did it!" haha... Skydiving! What an experience. I hope I was able to recreate just a hint of what we experienced. I definitely recommend trying it. Everyone asks this question... Will you do it again? We tell everyone that we would definitely do it again. Not so much on a whim to go skydiving, like "hey Abby you want to go skydiving today?" I don't think so... But, if a group of people wanted to go, we would go! Not sure how many times I want to test Fate! Although our instructors each had over 4000 jumps to their names! They go up, on average, 3-5 times during the week and 5-10 times during the weekend days. That is insane!
Well, I hope you all enjoyed a recap of our skydiving experience. Be on the lookout for pictures and hopefully a link to view the video of our jump. We hope you are all doing great. We sure are.. We are loving Houston and loving Texas Children's. Next week Abby heads home for an engagement party and I fly to Vegas with Corey and Van. We should both have wonderful trips! We love and miss you all....
Michael and Abby "the bad ass" Lee
until our next amazing adventure.....