Monday, August 13, 2012

Naomi's Misadventures in Skydiving


Gather around boys and girls to hear the tale of when Naomi jumped out of a plane for her 23rd birthday!
Kendra and I at SkyDive City!
Everything started out well. Kendra, M and I all went to SkyDive City and I filled out my paperwork and waited for the training session to begin. I wasn’t nervous one bit. Nope. Not me.
M. and I before the festivities!
 I, along with four other people, listened to our instructor T.K.  talk about the proper position to take once we are out of the plane. We were to keep our head up, keep our mouth closed, spread our arms out in front of our face and then keep our legs together through our trainers’ legs and have a grand old time posing and what not.


I meet my trainer Randy who gives me my jumpsuit, puts on my harness and once again goes over the proper positions for jumping out of the plane. I meet my photographer/videographer Cupcake, a funny, tattooed, and pierced up guy who interviews me before I get on the plane and during the plane ride.
Randy harnessing me up!
Interviewing with Cupcake

During our ascension up to 13,500 feet, I quietly say my prayers among the loudness of cursing and laughing and hype myself up for what’s about to happen. “Naomi,” I think to myself, “you’re about to jump out of a plane! One life one chance!”
My thoughts at this moment? "I wish I had some chapstick!"
We get closer to our drop zone and one by one, like flies, everyone begins to jump. It’s pretty cold that high in the sky and as I inch myself forward I’m still pretty calm. Randy is securely attached to my back and Cupcake steps out on the side of the plane so we can jump at the same time.

Still not nervous.

Randy leans in, leans out, leans in and leans out again and we’re off! My mind is blank.

Getting ready to jump!
I forgot EVERYTHING I was taught and suddenly realized that I’m in the air! There’s nothing below me! CRAP! So what did I do?
Here we go! As you can see I'm clearly in the fetal position
 I started grabbing at anything I could for security and to reassure me that I wasn’t going to plummet to my death, which naturally freaked Randy out and caused him to pull the parachute early. I’m talking 12 seconds into a 90 second freefall early. Yes, instead of the cool poses I was supposed I had in mind, I ended up hanging in the air attached to Randy like a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch for a good 10 minutes as we slowly descended to the field.
The whole thing was a mess!
In the midst of it all, I saw Cupcake fly down with a “what else can I do?” look on his face as I continued to flop around like a fish out of water. I, of course was the last one to come down as M. and Kendra wondered what on earth took me so long.  They laughed at me and with me while we waited for my pictures and video which caused even more laughs. However, I am not letting this “mishap” get me down. I am determined to go back into the sky and do my cute poses!

It’s a pretty huge deal to jump out of plane and live, but it’s an even bigger deal when you have laughs, a reputation at SkyDive City and a crazy story to go with it.
The last one.

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