The Jump of a Lifetime

by Carly Orris (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Australia

I’m looking forward at three lights in front of me: red, yellow and green. The red light is flashing than all of a sudden it switches to yellow. I hear a whoosh and that’s when I realize that the side door of the plane has completely opened. Within in a matter of seconds the green light starts flashing and I’m sitting on the edge of the plane overlooking the clouds and poof just like that I’m free falling into the sky. First need to back up to the exact moment of how I got here. Upon my arrival at Magnum Hostel in Arlie Beach, I was greeted with walls of brochures of how I could spend my time in within the Whitsundays. When planning a trip here the thing to do is excursions. Unless you have a car, there’s not too much to do within the actual town of Arlie Beach. When I was looking around at the brochures, there was one that caught my eye for skydiving. Since I was 16 I had a bucket list created for myself and one of the things that was on it was skydiving. I had it on there for 11 years never thinking that it would ever come to fruition. However, low and behold in the reception area in the hostel the opportunity appear. I took the night to think about if it was something I wanted to do. Realistically I knew that I didn’t need the time because my mind was already made up in that moment when I picked up the brochure. The next morning I walked right up to the reception area and booked my skydiving experience. I booked with the company Skydive Australia. Two days later it was time for me to actually jump out of a plane. The morning that I was going to take the leap, I woke up to a text saying the weather would be moving our landing point and our meeting time was delayed a half hour. I had butterflies in my stomach and it wasn't the "Oh sh*t what did I sign myself up for" but more of the "I'm actually about to jump out of a plane today." Waiting around to go to the starting point was the most anxious part. Finally the time came and I headed up the street to their store location for pickup. At the store I signed my legal waiver and made sure to buy my photo packages because this was not something that I was going to want to miss. We were given skydiving pants to wear and an extra parachute and harness, watched a 10 minute video and were on our way. The van pulled up shortly after to take us to the location where we would meet our guides, grab our safety gear, and hop in the plane. When we got to the hanger, there was a screen listing our names, instructors, and how high we would be jumping out of the plane. My name was the only one on the board with the 8K free fall next to it. I met my instructor Anna and she informed me that I would be the first to make the jump because I was going the lowest height. So back to where we started this story, I am now up in the air leaning out of the side of a plane. Anna got me in position and within the next moment I just felt my body move in slow motion. We took a tumble through the cloud down back to Earth. What felt like an eternity only lasted 10 seconds. Once Anna opened the parachute we were floating in the sky making our way back to the ground. There’s so many emotions I felt the during the time that I was coming back down to Earth. However, the one emotion I never felt was regret. Skydiving was one of the most adventurous things I have ever done and I plan to do it again in a heartbeat. Next time though I made myself the promise to go higher.