"When u stand at the edge of Cliff jump to FLY not to fall"... well I did FLY...

What did u to today? Was it the same mundane, routine day.. or was there a bit of excitement? Did u ace a test? Did a pretty girl smiled at you on the bus? Did u got into a fight? Did you purpose some body? :)... well I'm not collecting data for any survey foundations.. i was just building up a beginning..

What did i do last saturday? This is what I Did-

My alarm rang by 5:30 in the morning, but it didnt woke me up.. I was already up.. i have bean up for almost an hour.. took a shower and as was advised the night before, got into a pair of shorts and an easy t shirt.. apparently anything tighter would have hampered in my further proceedings during the day. It was still dark when i started walking towards the gas station almost a mile away. Although this is florida, it can still get as low as 8 degrees early in the morning..

Johnathan was waiting for me at the gas station in his car.. we took a ride to wallmart somewhere in the middle of the city... and from there continued on to this place known as "Palatka".. yeah thats a weird sounding name, but its a place where anybody in the 500 miles of radius of where i live goes to jump out of am aeroplain :D.. yeah this day was a dream come true.. i was finally going to skydive..

A weak before, when i saw the table for the "Falling gators" i knew i was gonna do it.. i decided not to do a tandem jump ( its where ur tied to an expert diver and just enjoy the fall, i also think its for pussies.. :) ).... i have decided to do an AFF-"Accelerated Free Fall" course. Its a 7 jump course where u learn to start jumping on your own.. and u jump on your own right from your firts jump... its a great feeling, letting go of your destiny and then regaining control over it somewhere around 13000 feet when ur dropping at close to 200 Km/hour...

The silent roads and rock music took us to our "Drop Zone".. we already had a 4 hour tarining in the body positions and emergency procedures the night before.. now we were given a on the ground annalysis of the drop zones with the wind directions.. it helps to plot your landing patern.. because you need that to land safely while flying your own parachute(yes another thing that u miss in the tandem, here you fly ur own parachute..)..

Next was turn to know what to do during various parachute malfunctions( this is about the time when it starts getting to you that u may be a little crazy to do this).. you are trained for another 2 hours in your exit counts and drop routine.. you dont just jump out of a plain, you need to show that ur aware and in your senses by doing some routines and practise touches to the chute ( i explain the routine to my instructor in the middle of the video..)...

Then we just practiced and practiced.. saw a couple of our group jump to.. lot of them were good and few of them just blacked out after going into the dive.. after all it is a "Sensory Overload" after u have jumped...
Around 4 P,m it was time for me to take the plunge... there is a video below for you to see for yourself.. when i sat down at the door of the plain, i was not worried abt the fall, i was worried abt my routine more... any hw i jumped and seriously i dont remember the first 3 secs of it.. my instructors shook me and thats when i woke up.. did my first routine and saw a thumbs-up sign(Thats hw we communicate in air.. by some 20 signs)from my instructor. Was done with my routine by 10,000 feet and just flew the rest of it till 5500 feet. it was the most awsome feeling in the world.. words cant describe it and frankly u have to go jump on your own to see whats it like..

once the chute opened i found myself meters off the base, with the wind in the opposing directions..
and there was no response on the radio.. quite frankly i prepared myself for a landing in the trees and a few broken bones if i was lucky.. self corrected my course but still was found myself just meters inside the boundary of the drop zone... finally i heard a sound on the radio "Sid give me a right turn..".. apparently they have forgotten the radio at the base and have to go back to get it... simply brilliant... next problem, i saw that i was gonna land on the runway and there was a freaking mother of god airplane on the same runway coming right in my directions.. got me worried for next 3 minutes till it turned and taxid away.. only thing i remember after that is myself screaming with joy.. the adrenaline has died down.. and i had made it.... and im going back for more thats for sure...

till the next time.. :D