Tandem skydive over Canberra

Tandem skydive from 15,000 feet

The world is made up of two groups of people; those who have been skydiving and those who have not. I thought I would always be the latter. However, my team at work had other ideas…

They surprised me one morning by saying, “Today is the day you get to jump out of a  plane”. I had all the standard responses: “I’m busy today”, “I’m not wearing the right outfit”, “why do I want to jump out of a perfectly good plane”. None of these answers did the trick. I was reminded that every year we send thousands and thousands of people off on skydives, and today was my turn.

So I said “ok” and was whisked away. I put on my overalls, I did my briefing and within two hours from originally being told that I was going to jump, I was in the light aircraft flying 15,000 feet above ground. I chose to be the first to jump. When asking the instructor what happens if people change their minds, he commented that at 15,000 feet everything sounds remarkably like “go”. And I’m so glad that I chose to jump – I still remember the sense of joy and freedom and the wind rushed past me and the ground came closer and closer. I can now tick it off my bucket list and the team at work can stop bugging me!