On my cradle list, composed the year Carl and I got married in 2007, were about seven to ten different things that each of us wanted to accomplish before we had any children. Our original plan was to be married for a whopping 10 years before we planned on having children, so this gave us plenty of time to dream big and accomplish many things. Since 2007, the things on my cradle list haven't changed much. I have accomplished two things thus far and I am very proud of those accomplishments. I completed my first marathon in 2008 and I went skydiving in 2012. I will talk about my marathon training in another post, but for now let's discuss this skydiving adventure!
I wanted to go skydiving for my birthday which is July 1st, but I did not get a chance to go because of other planned activities. I ended up going with a girlfriend of mine for her birthday the following month. Trust me, it took a lot of encouraging to get her to go.
Her initial response when I said we should go skydiving was something along the lines of "girl please, you are crazy!" and to which I replied "let's do something that we won't ever forget! I think it would be amazing!" She didn't agree with me over lunch, but when we each got back to work, a couple of hours later she called my desk and said "OK, let's do it!"
So here we are! It's August in Hawaii! The weather was great, the sun was shining and the sky was a perfect shade of blue. In walks two black girls on a quest for adventure! We signed up, watched the video, (which had to be from the early 80's tehe!!) and waited for our names to appear on the screen to go next. We waited for about an hour and watched others nervously and excited head to the airplane for takeoff. I looked around at all of the other people and noticed... we were the only black girls there and there were a lot of people there!
So our names appeared on the screen and we linked up with our professional jumpers. I don't recall their names, but the guy who I was attached to was an older gentleman, tall and skinny, but with a belly; and the gentleman my girlfriend was to jump with was much younger with reddish curly locks and only one leg. Yes, that’s right only one leg. One real leg and one prosthetic leg.
We looked at each other with worried faces and thinking oh my God, but we proceeded to take instructions from the professionals. After we got into our harnesses we were ready to head towards the very small plane. After seeing the plane I was glad we had parachutes on lol!
So we're off. The plane was very small and only eight people could fit on the benches. I wasn't nervous until the 5 minute jump warning went off. When the warning went off the doors were opened and all we could see was the beautiful Hawaiian ocean.
I was the third person up to jump and became very nervous after seeing the first two jump. As we scooted towards the door and all I saw was watch your step and the ocean, I smiled for the camera one last time and then I was out the door! If you ever imagined what it would feel like falling from an airplane that's EXACTLY what it felt like!
Once I got over the initial shock of jumping out of airplane, I opened my eyes and began to take in the beautiful view that I was surrounded by. I was in awe! The view of Hawaii from above was just magnificent!!! I really don't know how else to describe it!
After free falling for about 60 seconds the parachute came out. It felt like an abrupt halt, as the harness tightened and squeezed in odd places... Before I knew it we were in the clouds literally. My vision was blurry and the cool mist of the clouds was on my skin!! The professional let me guide the parachute which was also amazing, and then he took the reigns as we got closer to the ground.
We landed safely and I can honestly say this was one of the best adventures of my life! I look forward to doing it again!
No comments:
Post a Comment