Into thin air, indeed. Join editor Chad Merchant as he recounts his first skydiving experience as part of a fun-filled trip to New Zealand. Just another adventurous part of being an expat in Asia!

Getting zipped into my jumpsuit was fine. I felt no apprehension as we got in the plane, either. My tandem jumpmaster and I were the last ones in, along with the photographer who would be jumping with us. Last one in, of course, means first one out. No matter. And still no fear… this was the third airplane I had been on in less than 24 hours, after all, having flown from KL to Auckland for a brief overnight stay followed by an early flight from Auckland to Queenstown, where, upon arrival, I checked in to my hotel and within two hours, was being whisked away to the dropzone for my first skydive. So I was a bit jet-lagged, certainly glassyeyed, and more or less just being swept along by the inertia of my itinerary.

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Once on board the Cessna Caravan with a half-dozen fellow jumpers, the side door was rolled closed, its clear acrylic slats affording me spectacular views of Queenstown and the surrounding mountains as we leapt off the grass runway and climbed to our jump altitude of over 15,000 feet. Still, I was fine. I’m a pilot myself and have spent many hours in small airplanes, including my own beloved Piper Cherokee that I sold before moving to Malaysia. But I always stayed very much inside those planes, and that was not to be the case this time. My distinct lack of amusement at being the first one out of the plane was met with dismissive laughter and the Plexiglas door was rolled up, and suddenly, with nothing interposing, there was the world, tiny and remote, nearly three miles below us. And it was then that the first thrill of terror raced through me.

Though I’ve spent a lot of time in the air, both as a passenger and a pilot, nothing in my experience had prepared me for the sensation of being in the frame of an open door of an airplane in flight. Cold high-altitude air screamed into the plane and my mind seized at the excitement and horror of looking straight down. There was barely any time for the apprehension to fully register, though, nor was there to be any hesitation or panic. My jumpmaster and I simply rotated ourselves slightly and there we were, hanging out of the Cessna. Head back, legs tucked slightly under the fuselage, a couple of preparatory rocking movements, and then, we simply departed the aircraft, the only thing separating us from certain death the precious contents of a compact pack on the jumpmaster’s back. A microsecond of weightlessness and my heart leapt instantly into my throat, followed by the inexorable claws of gravity seizing us, then taking hold. We rocketed to Earth, accelerating to terminal velocity, 200 kph, in a matter of seconds. And then, free fall.

Spinning, sailing, mugging for the camera (at my photographer’s behest), we plummeted nearly two miles in just 60 seconds. At 6,500 feet, a sharp tug on the ripcord slowed our plunge from a suicidal 200 kph to a gentle 25 kph. I felt a surge of relief as that big, beautiful parachute unfurled above us, but not for the reason you might suspect. Free falling at 120 miles an hour through already-cold air produces a serious wind chill, so I was more than happy to slow down and warm up a bit!

For five wonderful minutes, we drifted ever downward, taking in the stunning scenery of New Zealand’s Lake Wakatipu region. My jumpmaster handed me the “reins” to the chute and let me fly us, pulling one side and then the other to steer us gracefully around the clear blue sky. It was remarkable… a wondrous and magnificent experience to be suspended there in mid-air like a bird, free and alive.

I was lucky enough to do my first skydive with a terrific operation called NZONE in Queenstown, New Zealand. They were the first tandem skydiving outfit in a country renowned for adventure sports, and they have been doing their thing for nearly 25 years now, racking up awards and accreditations along the way. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing it better. Their experience and unyielding professionalism surely went a long way to making it such a comfortable experience for me. In fact, my jumpmaster has an astounding 26,000 tandem jumps to his credit, so I could scarcely have been in better hands. (This sounds like a paid plug, but it’s not! They really were just that impressive.)

Skydiving for leisure perhaps embodies the best of what it means to be human. There is no real need to, as they say, jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but as I found, at that moment when you do, everything about you and your life flashes instantly into startling clarity. The happiness and the heartbreak. The pain and the passion. The love and the loss. All your memories and experiences, in that one split-second crucible of exhilaration and terror as you leap unfettered into the ether, crystallize and burn away, leaving behind nothing but raw desire and determination, revealing an unencumbered sense of being fully alive, fully in the moment. That is why we climb mountains, that is why we run marathons, and that is why we embrace the fear and throw ourselves out of airplanes.

Source: The Expat May 2014

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