First Skydiving Experience (Day trip to Michigan City)!

"Let's jump and dive and fly through the sky!"

Ever since I heard anyone can skydive, I knew I had to. I love adventure and the thrill I thought came with it, but never really had the time or friends that were available or just the feeling wasn't there. But, this past week, all I wanted to do was jump out of an airplane. It was constantly on my mind. I think it started when I saw an amazing Groupon (a website that has discounts to offer, I think it's only in the US, maybe I'm wrong) deal that gave me a bit over 50% off for the entire experience. I know the deal might be offered again but I needed to jump on it. Once I got the deal, I went on the website of the company I was skydiving with (Skydive Windy City Chicago | Skydive Chicago - Lessons & More snipped below) and booked my slot for the coming Saturday.

I was divided between choosing the 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM slot and the 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM slot. Finally, I settled on thinking I'll have a better experience while the sun was setting and not when it is right on top of my head during the jump and booked the evening slot. You will read about why this gave me a lot of disappointment soon.

I didn't really feel any excitement or fear the days leading up to the jump and I was a bit surprised as I usually get really excited for the tiniest of things. The day of the event, I left home around 9 am and was in Michigan city, Indiana (about an hour and a half away from where I live) to check out the skydive location. I checked the spot where I would need to come to around 3:30 PM and decided to drive to the beach.

The Washington beach was about 10 minutes away and was a very beautiful place. It is a 2 mile beach on the shores of Lake Michigan. It has a publicly operating lighthouse (the only working one in the state!). I spent a few hours relaxing, biking and reading a book. I also went up to the lighthouse and took in the beauty of the waters and the beach.

After that I went over to have lunch at Fiddlehead, a really nice restaurant with great vibes, good food and raving reviews. Then, I decided to walk around the neighborhood and went shopping at the Lighthouse Place Premium Outlet mall. Around 3:00 PM, I headed back to the skydive location. On my way there, I received a text message from a friend saying - "Good we didn't have our picnic today, there's a storm." I knew the storm usually travels south and that's where I am. I immediately felt a surge of disappointment.

After I checked in, I witnessed an airplane taking a few very excited skydivers. A few minutes later, I saw parachutes opening in the sky and a very smooth landing for most of the jumpers. The divers then came to us and started talking about their jump and the news I was dreading, the storm that they saw coming.

In the next few minutes, I saw the pilot making arrangements to tie down the airplane. I heard a skydiving instructor say that they saw a storm far ahead that would probably come our way and that they won't be taking more people up if it comes our way. I along with a few other people began looking through the radar on the AccuWeather app, I saw the storm about to pass the place where I was in half an hour. I knew I could reschedule, but I was very disappointed that I may not be able to do it that day and wanted to stay as long as possible. We sat there for about an hour refreshing the radar every minute. And around 4:40 PM, I saw the storm totally avoiding Michigan city and pass via Gary. In the next few minutes, they announced that they are taking the last set of people for the jump.

I was geared up with the harness all secured tightly and was happy that the weather turned out to be just okay! I was introduced to Rafael, my skydiving instructor and we started walking towards the aircraft. Now, Raphael, removed a few buckles on my harness and nothing was tightly secured. I was wondering how this was going to work.

I got on the aircraft, Rafael took his seat and asked me to sit in front of him. We took a few pictures and he was recording a video the entire time. The airplane took off and we were about 5 minutes in the flight. Rafael began telling me how I should be jumping and what I should do during freefall. All I could think of was MY HARNESS IS NOT SECURED! A minute later, Rafael started hooking his harness to mine and secured mine tightly and started doing checks. He did about 4 checks and by that time it was already close to 10 minutes flight time. I saw some red blinky LED lights that supposedly indicated we had two minutes to go.

We had some professional skydivers who planned on doing formations on their jump and they jumped first. Then there was another tandem jump and I was the last one out. Now we made our way to the end of the aircraft, had our legs dangling out at 14000’ MSL (~13,400’ above the ground) and I saw the view. This is the moment it hit me, the fear, the excitement, the thrill. That was when I was questioning my decision to do this.

And before I could think anything else, we jumped. It was freefall from there, I could feel the air pressure on my face and it was a bit difficult to breathe for about a minute, but it was one of the best feelings ever. At about 5,500' above the ground, Rafael deployed the parachute. Now, both of us were hanging from the parachute and he gave me the handles to assist in controlling it. My thighs were hurting a bit as the harness held me, but I didn't mind it at all.

While he did all the heavy lifting, I took in the beautiful view. We pulled on one side of the parachute and we were sent on a downward spiral spin (they do this to come down faster). We stopped for a minute and he showed me the Chicago skyline. It was stunning, it seemed like the best thing I've ever seen. We then had more spiral spins and were near to where we had to land. The landing was super smooth, I only had to put my legs up horizontally, parallel to the ground.

And that was it! I just voluntarily jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and made it alive, all in less than 20 minutes. It was one of the best experiences ever! I would highly recommend everyone to do it at some point in their life. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I went back to the Washington Beach and stayed there for about an hour before heading back home! Now that I have completed this bucket list item, I've added a new one - Skydive in as many pretty locations as possible.