Tandem skydives are an exhilarating experience.

Last Saturday, I took a tandem skydive thanks to my lovely wife who bought it for my birthday present. I have to say, I wasn’t nervous at all, calm as a cucumber in fact. I always try to never over think any situation and say to myself… “It’s been done a million times before, they are experts and I’m going to be fine.”

The worst part is the wait… They only ever had one plane taking us up and I had to wait about 3 hours, but I can definitely say it’s worth it. Once you step into that plane and get strapped up to your sky diver, you just let them do the work. They tell you what you’re doing and when so you never forget what you’re supposed to do.

Then, when you make it to the door, it’s both exciting and nerve wracking all at once. You simply kneel down and kick your legs bag as far as possible. “Be a banana” as our training instructor told us upon initial talks. Your skydiver will do the rest and push you out of the plane as you smile at the camera (if yours doesn’t slip away like mine did). This is the most exhilarating part, because at 15,000ft, you are in free-fall for a whole minute.

At first I couldn’t breathe due to the rush of air, I managed to gain my breath back and that was when I could look around and take it all in. It was breathtaking…

No feeling of falling…

It just felt like you’re lying on a cloud of air. Looking at everything around you and thinking just how small everything is from up here. I felt absolutely ecstatic, like I was literally on cloud 9.

Then suddenly the parachute opens and my sky diver is steering it from left to right. We did a couple of loops and it was incredible. Not as incredible as the free-fall, but still incredible.

We then come down to the landing and my skydiver accidentally overshot it and everyone had to move out of the way. It was pretty hilarious watching them jump out of the way while I embraced myself for landing. To do that you just have to lift your legs up as high as possible and skid along the ground.

The entire experience was insane. It felt like I didn’t jump it and it was all a dream, but at the same time it felt like so real and incredible. It is one experience I would love to do again and I would 100% recommend it to anyone else. Even if you’ve never thought about doing it, just do it and I can assure you, you won’t regret it one bit.

Proof that it happened…