Adrenaline Rush

Picture this, you are hanging off the edge of a plane, 15000 feet lie between you and the ground below, 15000 feet to where normal people live. And you ask yourself “Why in the name of God am I doing this ?”. Well, too late because you should have thought of that before you signed up for the sky dive.

Sky diving was not really on my to-do list in this month long trip to the US. But AJB, my fellow team mate convinced me to do this. Also this blog desperately needed an update, And so my dear readers..reader..well, whoever that accidentally stopped by on this page, I decided to sign up for the sky dive for you, even though it does not come cheap (may be the one without a parachute does but I suspect it is not as popular). The jump was scheduled the last weekend but did not happen because of cloud and fog. So we went back again today. It was a tandem jump. The jumpmaster who I would be hitched to helped me with the harness and gave a quick crash course (pardon the pun) on the do’s and don’ts. And then we boarded the plane with the others.

15000 feet in the air, I was looking down into emptiness, hanging out of the edge of the plane and suddenly I find myself being thrown into space. The first few seconds are a blur, I feel this blast of air on my face and then I realize I am in a free fall, shooting down at more than 100 miles an hour. The wind continues to blow up my face without relent, so hard that I forget to breathe for a moment or two.

I look around, the scene around me is beautiful, I see the outline of Monterey bay and the clear blue ocean. The jumpmaster asks me to put my hands out, I do and it feels like I am flying. The photographer, who jumped a moment before we did, is busy shooting the video of the jump. I manage to signal a thumbs-up sign to the camera. We are still hurtling down like there is no tomorrow and suddenly I am pulled upwards abruptly. The jumpmaster just deployed the chute. We had covered 10000 feet in about 70 seconds. The descent then on was slow and steady, relatively speaking. It gave me more time to take in what had just happened and also to enjoy the view around. Four minutes later, I am back on Terra Firma.

And I figured out why I did this...because it is an adrenaline rush that blows your mind away. So to sum it up... WOW !!

Friday night, my colleague here took me to my first Ice hockey game. I enjoyed it immensely especially the part when fights would erupt between the players and they go raining blows on each other. And yes, San Jose Sharks, the home team that my colleague (and hence me too) was cheering for, won beating Anaheim ducks 6-0. Ducks Suck...Go sharks !!

But as memorable as the match may have been, skydiving was an experience so incredible that it dwarfs everything else for now.

Like the T-shirt at the skydiving centre said - “Sky is not the limit, the ground is”.

So just shut up and jump...and don’t soil your pants...