I had always been facinated with the sport of skydiving, and had always wanted to do it, but could not find a partner to jump with(and give me the extra courage to actually do it). But one of my former employers told me that her husband also wanted to jump, so we got together and decided to go for it.

Late summer, and I signed up for the jump of a lifetime. Harold and I decided to do the tandem jump from 10,500 ft. We signed up for the next Saturday morning, and I had a hard night sleeping the night before. But morning came and I drove out to the DZ full of excitement. We arrived together and began to talk to one of the guys there, and he told us that the winds seem to be a little high, and the instructor was in the air right now checking the winds at the different altitudes.

Well the instructor returned to the DZ, and told us that the winds were just to high to jump today. What a disappointment!!!!

We were told that we could choose any time for another try, and we decided on the middle of the week, Wednesday evening.

Finally, again, the day came. We arrived at the DZ just in time to see a couple jumpers land. And we knew today would be the day. We watched the training video, signed the all-so-important waiver forms, suited up, practiced the procedures on the ground, and got ready to go. As they only had one tandemmaster available on weekdays, we had to go up in separate trips.

Harold was going to jump first. He had signed up for the air-to-air video, so the three of them climbed into the C182, and took off from the DZ. It felt like a very long time waiting for the plane to get to the correct altitude. Finally we saw two tiny dots falling out behind the plane. After about 40 seconds, the chutes opened, and Harold had a slow, smooth glide back to the earth. His touchdown was picture perfect!

Ok, my turn. We quickly went over the drills again, then took off for the blue skies. I didn't signup for the air-to-air video, but the cameraman came for the ride anyway. What a view from 10,500 ft!!! Now I know why Eastern Ontario is called the "Land O' Lakes".

Ok, we reached the right altitude, and got ready to jump. The instructor then asked "Do you want to have some fun on the way out?"
"Sure" I said.
"I'm going to do a forward flip on the way out of the plane. Is that Ok?" he asked.
"Sounds great!" I replied.

I was snapped into my instructor's harness and I took my jump position; left foot on the step outside the door, right foot inside the door, and arms crossed in front of me. As we were counting to three, my foot was blown off the step and I had to quickly reposition so I could push myself out. We counted again. "Three, Two, One, ARCH!!!"

I pushed out and arched back as instructed. I guess we did the forward flip on the way out, but it all happened so fast, I didn't even really notice. All I knew was that I had just jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, and was falling face down from 10,500 ft.

I guess I need a little practice in breathing while falling at 120 mph. Believe me, it was tough. The instructor opened the drogue chute, and we continued to freefall, doing flat spins back and forth the whole time.

After what seemed a very short period, the main was pulled, and suddenly everything was quiet. Very quiet. I looked up to see the canopy above me, and then looked around at my surroundings. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. There is nothing better than skydiving during a bright orange sunset.

The instructor then said "Let's have some more fun."

He let me take the steering toggles, as he held the rope above them. He told me to pull hard on the left one, and I did. We immediately began to spin to the left, getting faster and faster. We were now doing a pinwheel, spinning out beside our own parachute. We did a few more of them in the opposite direction, then had a relaxing conclusion to the ride.

The landing was right on target, but a little bit rough. We pulled the toggles a little bit too early, which resulted in a bit of a drop straight down. But we did stay on our feet when we hit.

I spent the next two days recovering from the adrenaline rush, and was already planning for the next opportunity to skydive....

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