Gravity Works! Skydiving over the Abel Tasman…

When I woke up this morning I had no idea that I would be jumping out of a plane at 13,000 feet by 10:30a.m.

Shannon made arrangements to be picked up by a skydiving company in Motoeka and the three of us were tagging along to provide moral support and encouragement. We hopped in the van and were greeted by an enthusiastic employee and his dance tunes, and on the 25-minute ride from Marahau to Motueka we were entertained by his adventurous life stories. He assured Shannon that she’d have a life-changing experience diving with the best on an ideal day. All along the way I gazed out the window, soaking up all the scenery and subconsciously self-talking my way into a dive experience of my own.

We arrived at the dive school and I looked up at the cloudless sky. I pulled up a chair and watched a few people jump from the plane, dispatch their parachutes, float through the sky, and land on the field in front of me. It didn’t look so bad.




I stepped into the office and signed my life away. Shannon and I psyched ourselves up by plugging into our iPods and playing our favourite tunes while we waited for our call to suit up. At about 10am we slipped into our less-than-glamorous coverall suits, had a pro harness us into our gear, and climbed up into the 8-passenger (plus two pilots) plane.

There are no seats on a skydive plane. We were strategically seated in the order of jumping, which meant that when Shannon got in last she was to be the first one out the door. I was second to jump. We sat on the floor of the plane, curled into our professional tandem diver so that they could harness our gear together. When you “jump tandem,” you jump with a professional strapped to your back. They get the gear sorted, keep track of release times, and basically run the show. This is good because it avoids a lot of freaking out.











I figure I put my trust in professionals who have done this thousands of times. Bob, my tandem master, has successfully jumped more than 13,000 times so I felt pretty safe. All the hard work was done for us – basically, all we had to do was tilt our heads back, arch our backs and make a starfish-like pose. Oh, and jump. (But if we didn’t jump I’m sure we would have been pushed because when your legs are hanging out of an airplane you’re pretty much at the point of no return!).


Tandem Master Bob - 13,000 dives and going strong!

It is absolutely terrifying to look down at the world, knowing that you’re about to jump into the space between. The first 40 seconds are spent in a “free fall” in which you do just that – spiral and dive through the air, testing gravity and all the other physical laws of the planet. After those 40 seconds fly by (literally!), the chord is pulled and the parachute bursts open, pulling you back up and stopping all the noise in the world. For a few short minutes you float down, twisting and turning so that you can see all the scenery – mountains, ocean, rivers, roads, and people. But the most sublime part of the jump is the absolute silence that exists once the parachute opens. The world is so peacefully quiet – so silent that I could whisper and be heard. The vast world below is a solid reminder that we are all just a very small part of it all. A cool place to hang out, and a memory I will never forget.



Floating through a cloud on the way down was incredible. Paired with the silence, it was like traveling through a whiteout and losing complete sense of which way is up, down, left or right. When we broke through on the other side I could see Shannon as she prepared to land on the field.

The most hilarious part of the trip occurred after landing. Shannon and I reunited as successful skydivers and she confessed that as soon as she started falling through the air, the head cold she’s been dealing with over the last few days leaked out of her nose and across her face (and even onto her tandem partner). I laughed so hard as I watched her pick the line of dried snot off her cheeks!






In the end, I challenged myself and my comfort zone. I did something that I never thought I would actually do. I figure that the very short amount of time I gave myself to make the decision to jump prevented me from talking myself out of it. Plus, I knew that an opportunity like this would never happen – a beautiful day in NZ, surrounded by good friends and quality professionals. The whole thing rendered me speechless and reminded me that risks are worth taking.

So thanks, mom and dad, and grandma and grandpa, and grandma...you're birthday money was well spent!

Until the next adventure,

Larissa