Sky Dive

Geared up, ready to jump!

Why does my instructor Chad have a helmet and I don't...?

Boarding time!

After all those years of flirting with the idea I did it: Sky diving. Fantastic! The society of fellows, the postdoc association at Scripps organized a sky dive. When I got the email I immediately signed up together with Linda and Nadege the other two postdocs in the lab. Saturday was the big day. We arrived at the sky dive center located south-east of San Diego at 10am. After signing our life away a hundred times we got a very brief training, which basically just showed the flying position. We then waited for our turn. The place is really busy on weekends and the instructors jump up to 20 times a day! We did only one jump and that was truly awesome! The moment when you jump out of the plane (13000f or 4000m) head first, you know why it's called diving. We then had a short moment flying backwards, looking back at the plane. I live that moment over and over again! The free fall lasted for about a minute before the parachute opened and we went down a little slower but still quite fast landing 5 minutes later. It was a feeling that I never experienced before and left a deep impression. The views were spectacular as well with the desert and hills on one side and the ocean on the other but what will stay is the feeling of the free fall. For all of you who thought about sky diving before, DO IT! Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the jump but I will post some from the ground.
Have a god week!