Jump the Reef - Skydive in Cairns

We had booked to do our skydive at midday but at 7:30am were wide awake thinking about it. While thinking we received a phone call asking if we would like to do our dive earlier as they had a cancelation. At the risk of not doing it through thinking too much, we didn’t hesitate and jumped at the chance to get it out of the way. We got up, dressed and had to skip breakfast which was probably the best idea and thirty minutes later we were on the bus on the way to the office.
At 8 o’clock on the dot the bus picked us up and before we knew it we were filling out the paper work signing our lives away. We had promised not to tell our parents when we were going to do our skydive at the risk of stressing them out. So Jonny decided to text Chloe telling her that he was about to jump out of a plane, her response was “great, I won’t be getting any sleep now until I know you are safe back on the ground”. As my sister Gemma was out of the country I decided she wasn’t really an option, I did text Katie but she never looks at her phone, so I decided my safest bet was to text my pregnant best friend which in hindsight may not of been the kindest thing to do as sleeping for her is a challenge as it is.

When we arrived at the airport we met our instructor. We had paid to have the skydive filmed using a wrist camera and as part of the video we had to have a short interview about what lay ahead. As Jonny and I had decided jumping from 10,000 feet was high enough we were the last on the plane and first out. Jonny’s instructor insisted that they jumped before me and my instructor which meant they were next to a see-through door, which was a challenge for Jonny’s vertigo. We had to sit facing the back of the plane so when we took off we were going backwards which was a strange sensation. The views as we got higher became more and more impressive. I was looking out at the little people and thought “wow this is high” only to be told we had only climbed 1000 feet and still had some 9000 to go before we were leaving.  Cairns looked beautiful from the skies; we were able to see just how green the tropics are because the town was dawft by lush rainforest.

Being next to the door it was up to Jonny’s instructor to check our location and to do this he needed to keep leaning out of the plane. As Jonny was attached he had to go with him, hanging out of a door 10,000 feet in the air trying to spot a tiny orange flag on the floor which would have looked like an ant from our height. He did spot it and before we knew it the see-through door had opened and Jonny was gone. It was the strangest and worst feeling seeing him disappear out of a plane door, it made my tummy turn. I didn’t have long to get emotional about it though as it was then my turn and within seconds I had my legs dangling out of the plane.

I soon realised falling towards earth was not something I was too keen on seeing so I closed my eyes tight. I could feel the air rushing over my body and all I could hear is white noise, like the sound when you lean your head out of a window of a fast moving car. I felt my instructor tap me on the shoulder which was the signal to move my arms from across my chest to a skydive position, almost like they were wings. It was at this point I was able to open my eyes; the feeling was incredible, falling so fast and having no control.  I found it really hard to catch my breath with the air blowing in my face and everything flashing past I had to remind myself how to breathe.

When the parachute was pulled everything went calm, the white nose stopped and the world stopped flashing past. The parachute was acting like wings which we could control and it really did feel like we were flying. We were able to look down on the land and forest, just floating around above the earth was the most amazing feeling, and for me the best part of the dive.

As Jonny was the first person to jump he was the first person to land and I was able to watch him land back on the ground safe. He then looked up and waved as I was still flying and getting ready to land. The instructor managed to get us into position and I was told to lift my legs high as he guided us in. We landed quite gracefully compared to Jonny’s bum slide landing which left a few grass stains. We sat together and watched the other daredevils from our flight complete their jump from 14,000 feet. We watched in disbelieve at what we had just achieved.

The crazy thing is that if we were asked to do it again we wouldn’t even need to think about it. Of course we would do it again.