Parachuting

My friend Mark and I went skydiving today and it was amazing! We were supposed to go yesterday but couldn't because of the high winds. We got to the drop zone around 9:30AM filled out about 10 pages of liability disclaimers and went through our orientation, which involved mostly watching another disclaimer telling us we didn't have to do this, there's no such thing as a perfect parachute, pilot or instructor, etc.

We went out side, went through a five minute instruction on what was going to happen, and then suited up. We met our tandem jump instructor, suited up and got ready to jump. Mark and I, our tandem partners and the cameraman loaded up along with 15 other jumpers. From 13,500 feet, we could see the Cedar Point amusement park about 3 hours away. When the time came, we were all hooked up and we waddled towards the opening after everyone in line in front of us jumped, all within about 20 seconds. We kneeled on the door frame as I looked down over 2 miles. Next thing I knew we were out the door, flipping over and over until we stablized. Our camera person was right there in front of us as we got into our freefall position. We did some spins, waved to the camera and continued falling as it sunk in just how high I was in the air, how fast I was falling. You're barely concious of the fact that you're attached to someone else. At about 5,000 feet he popped the chute and continued going down. It went from being loud and fast to totally quiet and slow. We did some spins in the air and we had a nice landing. This got me thinking that I want to go back and continue pursuing my parachuting license, which I'd begun about 7 or 8 years ago when Noel, Matt Gielow and I went for the first time. I'd done a bunch of jumps since then, but never went after year. I'll post the video as soon as I get it.