We had a great time

Vlad and Terry in the airplane

On Sunday, the skydive that Terry had scheduled at Skydive Snohomish was finally accomplished! Last Sunday, when she first scheduled, was canceled due to weather, but the skies this past weekend were blue both days! Since Terry works five days a week, it had to be on the weekend, and I decided to just make the one jump and drive down with her. We headed off for Snohomish an hour earlier than we had to, because we were both a little on the anxious side. Me more than her, it seemed.

Terry signing her life away

She breezed through the long waiver she had to sign and watched the 30-minute video. Then the entire class of twenty lay down on the floor to practice the arch position while an instructor watched. We were in the first airplane out of three scheduled for the class. While she did all that, I got my gear ready, so I could jump out with her under my own parachute.

Vlad dressing Terry with the jumpsuit and harness

And off we went in the airplane. There were five people getting out in front of us, so Terry watched them as they seemed to just disappear when they leapt out of the plane. (I remember how scary that was for me the first time.) And then she was moved to the door by Vlad, her instructor, and THEN she got scared. But by that time, there was nothing to do but just jump. They went, and I left a fraction of a second before them, having climbed outside the plane.

Vlad took this picture with a camera on his left wrist

That is me flying in to take a grip on Terry's hand. She was so overwhelmed by the experience (naturally) that I took Vlad's hand instead and moved it over to Terry's. As you can see from the expression on her face, she was otherwise occupied looking at the ground. We are in freefall, and that is the drogue chute's line above the tandem parachute. It slows down the two of them to normal freefall speed. Tandems also need to open a couple thousand feet higher than individual skydivers, so they got under a parachute while I continued to fall for a few seconds longer. That meant I would land before them and get a picture of their landing.

Here they come!

I was able to grab my camera out of my jumpsuit and get this picture of them as they came in to land. They are only a few seconds from landing, and that was a piece of cake, with Vlad as the instructor. (He only has around 9,000 tandem skydives under his belt.)

Touchdown!

Terry simply sat down when she landed. You can see that Vlad actually stood up as they came in. You can also see the drogue chute and the parachute are still inflated. I was just a hair behind on capturing the actual landing. After all this, we walked back to the staging area and Terry was given a certificate of accomplishment, as well as taking off the harness and jumpsuit. I had to get my own parachute packed up before we could leave for home, but we were done with the "bucket list" experience that Terry wanted to rack up. She did great, but she said she doesn't think she would do it again. The freefall part was way more overwhelming than she expected. I know all about that feeling; it was what made me go again and again.

With that behind us, we drove north for the 75-mile trip back home, and me in the car with a fellow skydiver! We really had fun, and I hope maybe sometime this year I'll get a chance to do this with another friend who turns from a whuffo (someone who has never jumped) to a skydiver!
:-)