SKYDIVE DAY!! YAY!!

A skydive was one of the main things that we wanted to do on our trip and after the skydive being cancelled in Nelson due to bad weather it has felt like the day would never come! Our skydive was booked in for 12.30 on our first day in Cairns, after a tentative morning spent hanging around the hostel the bus finally came to pick us up and take us to the skydive centre. Upon arrival we had an almighty amount of forms thrust at us sign that you acknowledge that skydiving is a 'dangerous sport', people 'do die' yes yes yes, we all know this stuff, even though their advertising mentions the terms 'Safe and Easy', now let us get on with it!

I met my Tandem Master Alisha and she put me into the harness and we went through the motions of how I should position my head, arms and legs during the initial few seconds of the decent and then throughout my skydive, all the time Max, the guy that I had booked to take the video of my flight and photographs zoomed in and out with his camera asking me questions! No sooner that the initial training had been carried out we were on a plane and flying up through the clouds! The plane was pretty small, as you would expect with only 13 passengers, we all sat along two benches and at 6,000 feet one of the guys with a parachute sat up, opened the hatch and just fell out of the open door, it was so strange to see and was one of the only moments that made me think, goodness, what am I doing here?!! Alisha has completed thousands of jumps so I knew I was in good hands and bizarrely I didn't find the experience scary, the waiting around in the morning was the worst bit for me!

The first girl to jump leapt out, looking absolutely petrified at 11,000 feet and it was then only 5 minutes until I was due to jump, the first of the 14,000 feet jumpers! They ushered me to the edge of the plane and there I sat with my legs dangling over the edge of the plane with Alisa behind me and without any warning, there I was falling through the air! Its really hard to describe what it feels like to be free falling through the air from 14,000 to 4,000 feet in 60 seconds, the words 'awesome' and 'incredable' barely seem do the experience justice! The views were amazing on the fall, however I think I must have been preoccupied with the camera guy filming me at one point because I didn't even notice that we went through a massive cloud, it wasn't until Jo mentioned it afterwards and when I saw the pictures that I realised that I probably hadn't been as observant as I could have been, but then again there is a lot to be thinking about so I will forgive myself that one! The camera guy, Max fell through the air with me filming me as we went and grabbed my hands at one point spinning me around in the air which was so cool. Off he went to film the landing and then up went our parachute at 4,000 feet and with a rather abrupt jolt up went the parachute (phew!) and off we went through the air. It was really cool being the first one out as I got to look up and see Jo and the others all following down. Alisha then let me hold the ropes of the parachute and showed me how to spin in the air which was great fun, Alisha then took control of the ropes again for landing. The whole experience was incredible and I would love to do it again soon!

It was then time to view the DVD and photos, the photos are amazing, its so impressive that they can get such good shots, however the camera guy had hit the camera that is strapped to his helmet when he first got out of the plane and it had turned off, so there isn't a DVD of my freefall which is disappointing but luckily Joeys guy got film of me jumping out so I am sure with some cleaver editing I can make something out of it with the funny interviews and my landing (that he did get!) Ah well, another excuse to have another go sometime soon :) !!