Skydiving: The Jump

Right, so I'm getting in the plane...

I'm not sure how long the flight up took, but we took a pretty good tour of the area on the way up, with jump-master R pointing out local features. He asks if I want to tumble forwards or backwards. I say the fewer tumbles the better as I can be prone to motion sickness. (My exact words, I think, were "I don't want to puke on you.") It's very loud in the plane so the quicker something is to say, the better.
Roughly two thirds of the way up (so, around 6000ft) it starts getting cold. By the time we've reached out altitude, my teeth are chattering. (I found out later it was around 4C at altitude.) He reminds me of what to do, lifts the hatch, I flip my legs out over the side of the plane, dangling my feet and glad my sneakers are securely tied. I look down - 9200 ft down - and instead of thinking "Holy ----! Holy ----! Holy ----!! What am I doing?!?" my thoughts are more along the lines of "I'm really going to jump out of a plane. I'm not freaking out. Ha ha, cool!" and then we're off.
He did this cool side twist thing on the way out in the hopes that I could watch the plane to have an idea of how fast we were falling away and I wanted to see it, but reflex took over and I had to close my eyes to keep my stomach steady. I did remember to "Kick [him] in the butt!" as told, though, and now know why skydivers have that peculiar pose when they first leave the plane. There's a lot of air resistance so what you're seeing is the jumper halfway to where he wants his legs to be. If you've ever walked the wrong way in a whirlpool or tried to canoe through a strong current, you get the idea.
Back to the jump, as soon as the flipping stopped I opened my eyes, tried to do the "play with your arms! Fly! Swim! Do the monkey!" stuff they told me about but the wind rushing past my ears was just so loud that it was painful, so I had my arms out for a couple seconds, but they were covering my ears for the rest of the freefall.
After a little while (I think we were in freefall for about 30 seconds) the chute deploys without problem and I'm jerked, but not as hard as I expected I would be. It feels like we're going up instead of down for a few seconds and then it just settles into a feeling of sitting on something except there's nothing there. In fact the feeling wasn't unlike sitting on a plane except with a breeze and a waaaay better view. The noise has quieted, too, so I can take my hands off my ears and chat with R. He loosens some of my bindings for comfort and points out other features of the landscape and I just take it all in. I notice soon after that it's balmy now instead of freezing cold. It's nice. The rest of the ride is mellow until he takes a sharp turn and I squeak a little in surprise as my stomach turns. (Sidenote: the desk is kind of swaying side to side as I remember this part) I ask him to take it easy and he goes wider on his turns.
Now, were coming in for the landing sequence. This is the part that worries me. It isn't the falling that hurts you, it's the landing that does. I make sure I'm clear on how I'm supposed to land and do it as told, but we hit a touch of turbulence off the hangar and land a touch harder than planned. My ankles sort of bite/jar/sting on impact but I regain my footing and the pain clears within a minute. No damage done - a successful jump.
As he starts taking off my harness, my legs go a bit jello as blood flow returns to normal (those leg bindings are designed safety first, comfort second) and he lets me in on a secret: right after we jumped, his altimeter crapped out and he had to make an educated guess on when to pull the chute. Ha! I thank him for waiting until we landed to tell me and am amused. Now it dawns on me that I've just jumped out of a plane. Holy bleep, I just stepped out of a plane and fell 9200 ft with only a (admittedly, specially designed for the purpose) sheet to stop me from going splat! Holy bleep, I just did something that I'd spent the past ten years hoping to maybe do someday! I did it! I really did it! Boo ya!!!
I start talking a little bit more and tell him that I tend to babble, and even more when nervous/in high emotion. I tell him I'm very relieved that I didn't relive my lunch and he agrees. He tells me that he holds this place's record for being puked on the most (18 times) and it's not a record he's proud of. I have him counter it with a record he is proud of. His answer: Most malfunctions. Seventeen of them. That's a skydiver for you. But I think I get it. He's had that many malfunctions and he's made them all work out because he's still alive and jumping, so he's proud he's MacGyvered his way out of seventeen bad situations.
If you want to see someone who loves their job, just look at this guy.
We walk back to the hangar. I give hubby a hug and kiss and he's very happy that I'm alright. We sit for a bit letting the whole thing sink in, then go into the office to get my certificate and to make sure we've crossed every T and can leave at our leisure.
I want to sit for a bit because I've started a solid headache - similar to what I get when I sleep wrong. I'm asked if I would jump again someday and I tell them to ask me again when I'm feeling better. They ask me a few questions to make sure it doesn't sound like anything serious and conclude that it's probably a mix of sensitivity to noise and maybe my head jerking a touch harder than I thought. Advil is suggested but I think it's just a noise headache and some quiet will do the trick. I thank them, reassured, and we head out.
On the drive home, I cover my eyes and turn off the radio and the vibe in the car is much more relieved than it was on the way over. We get home and I rest a little while more. As I suspected, the headache clears up with a good dose of silence. DH makes dinner and I do the dishes, proud of myself for the day.

I jumped out of a freaking plane, man!