Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Photos
I added quite a few photos and videos. They should be public now and I believe you can view them by following this link https://picasaweb.google.com/104385918922478847724
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Skydiving and Surfing
I finally did it. I have wanted to sky dive for as long as I can remember and I was finally able to do so yesterday.
The bus to Bryon Bay left at 5:15 in the morning. Bryon Bay is an hour away and that is where we did both activities. When I signed up online it very simple and easy. All I had to do what pay for it really, but once I got there, they had me sign my life away and asked if I wanted insurance and these other extras. It was still barely light out when we left. I didn't get any sleep on the way there or on the way back.
Once we got there, we stood in line for literally an hour or so waiting to turn in all the paperwork we just filled out. You have to be a member of the Australian Parachute Federation to jump out of the plane so they had to wait for that to go though before you could jump. Once we finally got signed up there was more waiting and anticipation. My stomach started to get uneasy from nerves.
Before the jump we had a quick 10 min session about what was going to happen and what we should do. The guy did tell us though, if you forget any of this it doesn't really matter. It was a tandem jump so the guy I was attached to basically did all the work.
We took a small plane 14,000 feet up in the air. I was told to wear a long sleeve shirt cause we would be so high up but it wasn't really that cold. It took about 20 minutes to get up there. I was the second to last person to jump out of the plane so I had to watch as basically everyone else jumped out. When jumping out of the plane, they told us to cross our arms and hold the harness tight and to tilt our head back. I am wondering if they had us tilt our head back so that we wouldn't freak out when looking down from the plane.
My tandem partner, Gabe, pushed us out of the plane and for about 3 seconds I got the uneasy feeling you get on a roller coaster. We did a couple flips and then Gabe unleashed the trail line to stabilize us. We stopped spinning and I was flying though the air at around 160 mph looking straight down. The free fall lasted 60 seconds. I felt weightless. I tried to flap my wings like a bird, but I realized that it was hard to move my arms cause of the force of the wind. I almost hit Gabe in the face so I stopped after that. The scenery was really amazing but I basically just looked down cause I was afraid my goggles would fall off. We did some horizontal spinning which was really cool, but I have to say that I was still pretty relieved when the chute was pulled.
Once he pulled the chute I got really uncomfortable. I don't think that my harness was on right. After about 20 seconds I couldn't really feel my arms. I told Gabe this so he said "ok I got it". And he loosened the bottom straps around my legs. I dropped only a couple inches but I scared the hell out of me. He loosened some of the front straps too which made it slightly better. My arms were numb like how your feet can fall asleep, but he still let me control the parachute for a while. I pulled it all the way to the right and put us into a rapid spiral downward. This was at his request cause we were a ways behind the others that jumped before. I still felt like I was barely in the harness which was the worst part of the whole thing. The feeling that I could easily fall out if not careful. We hit the ground and I was so relieved. I couldn't get a grin off my face either.
It was an incredible experience that I don't think I will be doing again for a while. My shoulder is still sore and hurting and it is really quite expensive. Next time I do it I want to do it alone on a static line though. You don't jump from as high but I like to be attached directly to the parachute instead of worrying about being connected to a person that is connected to the parachute. Too many factors.
Surfing! My goal was to learn to surf and I think I accomplished that. It really is not that bad. They didn't teach us any amazing secrets or anything. I was able to get up on the board a couple of times so that was good. I did well in the beginning but the longer we surfed the harder it got. We were all pretty tired from waking up so early. Add to that the waves hitting you and the sun beating down on you. It was actually a really nice day if I stop and think about it. The water temperature was perfect and there was a little breeze to keep you cool.
The reason it is so tiring is that you catch a wave and ride it to shore and then you have to grab your board and haul it all the way back to sea to catch another one. Also there was so many people in our group that you had to bail out if you were going to hit someone and it would kill the perfect wave sometimes. Overall though I really enjoyed it. I wish I lived near the ocean cause I could see myself trying to get into surfing. I hope to go surf a couple more times before I leave here cause Australia has the best waves for surfing.
The bus to Bryon Bay left at 5:15 in the morning. Bryon Bay is an hour away and that is where we did both activities. When I signed up online it very simple and easy. All I had to do what pay for it really, but once I got there, they had me sign my life away and asked if I wanted insurance and these other extras. It was still barely light out when we left. I didn't get any sleep on the way there or on the way back.
Once we got there, we stood in line for literally an hour or so waiting to turn in all the paperwork we just filled out. You have to be a member of the Australian Parachute Federation to jump out of the plane so they had to wait for that to go though before you could jump. Once we finally got signed up there was more waiting and anticipation. My stomach started to get uneasy from nerves.
Before the jump we had a quick 10 min session about what was going to happen and what we should do. The guy did tell us though, if you forget any of this it doesn't really matter. It was a tandem jump so the guy I was attached to basically did all the work.
We took a small plane 14,000 feet up in the air. I was told to wear a long sleeve shirt cause we would be so high up but it wasn't really that cold. It took about 20 minutes to get up there. I was the second to last person to jump out of the plane so I had to watch as basically everyone else jumped out. When jumping out of the plane, they told us to cross our arms and hold the harness tight and to tilt our head back. I am wondering if they had us tilt our head back so that we wouldn't freak out when looking down from the plane.
My tandem partner, Gabe, pushed us out of the plane and for about 3 seconds I got the uneasy feeling you get on a roller coaster. We did a couple flips and then Gabe unleashed the trail line to stabilize us. We stopped spinning and I was flying though the air at around 160 mph looking straight down. The free fall lasted 60 seconds. I felt weightless. I tried to flap my wings like a bird, but I realized that it was hard to move my arms cause of the force of the wind. I almost hit Gabe in the face so I stopped after that. The scenery was really amazing but I basically just looked down cause I was afraid my goggles would fall off. We did some horizontal spinning which was really cool, but I have to say that I was still pretty relieved when the chute was pulled.
Once he pulled the chute I got really uncomfortable. I don't think that my harness was on right. After about 20 seconds I couldn't really feel my arms. I told Gabe this so he said "ok I got it". And he loosened the bottom straps around my legs. I dropped only a couple inches but I scared the hell out of me. He loosened some of the front straps too which made it slightly better. My arms were numb like how your feet can fall asleep, but he still let me control the parachute for a while. I pulled it all the way to the right and put us into a rapid spiral downward. This was at his request cause we were a ways behind the others that jumped before. I still felt like I was barely in the harness which was the worst part of the whole thing. The feeling that I could easily fall out if not careful. We hit the ground and I was so relieved. I couldn't get a grin off my face either.
It was an incredible experience that I don't think I will be doing again for a while. My shoulder is still sore and hurting and it is really quite expensive. Next time I do it I want to do it alone on a static line though. You don't jump from as high but I like to be attached directly to the parachute instead of worrying about being connected to a person that is connected to the parachute. Too many factors.
Surfing! My goal was to learn to surf and I think I accomplished that. It really is not that bad. They didn't teach us any amazing secrets or anything. I was able to get up on the board a couple of times so that was good. I did well in the beginning but the longer we surfed the harder it got. We were all pretty tired from waking up so early. Add to that the waves hitting you and the sun beating down on you. It was actually a really nice day if I stop and think about it. The water temperature was perfect and there was a little breeze to keep you cool.
The reason it is so tiring is that you catch a wave and ride it to shore and then you have to grab your board and haul it all the way back to sea to catch another one. Also there was so many people in our group that you had to bail out if you were going to hit someone and it would kill the perfect wave sometimes. Overall though I really enjoyed it. I wish I lived near the ocean cause I could see myself trying to get into surfing. I hope to go surf a couple more times before I leave here cause Australia has the best waves for surfing.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Currumbin Rock Pools and Cliff Diving
Been a while since my last post. I haven't done anything post worthy since then I suppose. I do feel that this is post worthy even though it may scare my parents to death.
Today we went to the Currumbin Rock Pools. To me, it was a mix of the forested areas with trees and rivers that you would seen in New Hampshire and some tropical trees and weather (it rained on us for a bit). It only took us about 25 minutes to drive out to this place. They said it is one of Queensland's Nation Parks. It was basically on the side of a mountain so the river was super cold and the rocks were really slippery. I ended up getting a leach on me that we had to burn off with a lighter. There were a lot of waterfalls and cliffs to dive off of. I didn't realize this until we already did it but people are not allowed to swim or cliff dive in these areas. Australians are just crazy and don't care I guess. It was a "do at your own risk kind of thing".
It was kind of a back woodsy way that you had to climb up to get to the cliff. There is no set trail for anything so I got a bit of rock climbing in as well today. I am really glad that I wasn't a girl about it by waiting up there and thinking too much about it. They just counted down and I went. All the girls waited for forever to do it until everyone was complaining at them for making them wait. The cliffs were like 10 meters or so. Not sure what that is in American but it looked high up to me. I ended up jumping off the first cliff twice and another cliff once. I didn't cover my nose the first time so water shot up there and into my mouth. I was coughing quite a bit. The water was extremely deep though and I never touched the bottom when jumping.
They haven't posted any pictures of me jumping yet but this giver you a good idea of how high up the cliffs are.
I feel like if I can jump off a cliff I can do skydiving now. It is tomorrow! I have to be ready by 5:15 am which is going to suck though. Not sure how I am going to stay awake. Adrenalin I guess. Here is a video one of the Aussies took jumping off the cliff. Hopefully you can view it.http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150107976787529
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