Back in July, I turned 30 and as a present, the Mrs kindly purchased me a Tandem Skydive from 15,000 feet. It was one of those I’ve always wanted to do a Skydive then upon opening my gift certificate things got very real very quickly!
Having been cancelled in August and rescheduled for October the 2nd, I decided to try and raise some money for Speed of Sight. Being visually impaired and having a big involvement in Motorsport I thought all monies would be raised for a charity close to my heart.
I’m an adrenaline junkie, I’ve had some pretty big crashes rallying over the years, but I’ll be honest I was pretty damned nervous about doing this. On the day everything went well, we had a gorgeous blue sky and zero wind and I’d managed to condition myself into just getting on with it.
I kept remotely calm on the climb up in the plane focussing on how I was going to keep my slip on shoes from flying off my feet at a 120mph freefall hurtling towards the earth. Upon leaving the plane you hit terminal velocity within a second and don’t really feel anything, just the wind and noise! For 40 seconds you and your tandem skydiver are freefalling, and it’s a very surreal experience, almost euphoric. Everything in life just vanishes, family, work, mortgage I can only describe it as 40 seconds to reflect on your life and it feels like your falling for minutes. Next thing the chute has been pulled and you start to slow down, do some spins and land with your feet has high as you can.
The whole experience was great although really not what I expected, I didn’t get the adrenaline rush as I do with rallying, it gave me another sort of buzz.
Would I do one again?
Yes, I would, I’d recommend everyone gives it a try even if you are scared of heights.
In the end, I managed to raise over £360 for the Speed of Sight and you can still donate here.
