Taupo the morning to ya

If there was a guiness world record for the most times the phrase "oh my god" was heard in a 24 hour period; I would hold that record. I reached this milestone by taking three irish women on a road trip to Lake Taupo to embark on a 15,000 ft tandem skydive. When I have a one to one conversation with any of my three irish friends, I can understand them perfectly. When the three of them are speaking with each other, the rate at which they produce words triples and it is completely incoherent. This is hysterically funny to listen to as it basically consists of a series of outbursts, laughter, oh my god's, and cuss words. There was so much cussing I felt like I was in a Martin Scorsese movie. I find it ironic that the phrase "oh my god" has become so commonplace in english conversation that it has absolutely no relationship to religion anymore. I hear the words uttered all the time by Christians and atheists alike. It's also blindingly obvious that this phrase is used exponentially more by girls than guys. If I was an ambitious linguistics scholar I would be publishing a paper titled OMG.


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I have never spoken to someone who has been skydiving before and was not absolutely through the roof for it. Conjure up about 100 synonyms for the word amazing and that's how people describe skydiving. And all those people are undeniably correct. A friend told me once, that jump guides are trained to make the entire experience as process oriented as possible. The idea is to keep the tandem diver involved in everything other thinking about what they are about to do. So as soon as I met the guy I was to jump with he had me completely preoccupied with small tasks all the way up until the point that we fell out of the plane. Stand here. Put this on. Look at the camera. Walk over here. Sit there. There was no down time. No time to get scared. And surprisingly, I didn't get scared or nervous....until the first two jumpers took off at 12,000 feet. (We had paid an extra $100 for the maximum 15,000 ft.) Skydiving was nothing like I had imagined it in my head. I always pictured a huge plane, with plenty of room. I imagined myself getting up and walking to a giant door and actually jumping out of into the sky. Turns out, I was not even close. We piled onto a tiny plane, which had been cleverly painted pink. We sat on a bench Indian style, each guide behind there prospective jumper. I was to be the third jumper out of our group of four. When it was my turn my guide just shoved me forward to the end of the bench and onto the floor. There was no decision making on my point. I was going where this guy was pushing me whether I wanted to or not. As soon as I got near the small opening in the plane the most powerful wind I've ever experienced smashed me in the face and I became immediately paralyzed with fear. I could not hear, speak, move or think. If I could have processed a thought, I probably would have worried about my heart beating a whole in my chest before bursting wide open. When my guide pushed me to the edge of the plane and my feet fell out into the air the impossible happened - I got even more scared. At this point I was certain that I was just going to die right there. There was no way that a person could experience that kind of tension on every muscle in their body and every fiber in there brain and not instantly expire. Before I could shove this guy back in the plane and demand that we land immediately, we fell out of the plane. We didn't jump. We didn't scoot off the edge. We just toppled off the side. At this point I felt the most incredible speed I have ever felt in my life. I am certain I have never moved that fast in my life. It was spellbinding. I continued to remain absolutely paralyzed in fear. For the first few seconds of the fall I didn't scream or smile or frown or do anything but remain completely astonished at what was happening. I was able to follow the instructor's commands; moving my arms when told to. Eventually, a little smidgen of the fear subsided and I looked out over Lake Taupo and tried to scream. Nothing really came out. The wind was blowing so hard that the skin on my face was being stretched all over the place. As soon as opened my mouth I inhaled this wind and uttered a barely audible screech. After a few seconds I realized that I was being filmed and tried to make some memorable faces for the camera. The free fall seemed to last forever. I've watched skydiving videos before and always thought that skydivers looked like they are just casually floating around in the air. But it doesn't feel like floating at all. It actually feels completely unnatural. The human body was not made to travel that fast.

Eventually, the guide instructed me to pull my arms in and all the sudden I felt a hard thrust upwards as the parachute filled with air and drastically decreased our speed. My harness actually left a bruise on my legs from the back lash. The landing was almost as scary as the free fall. It was eerily quiet and still hanging from the parachute and I was certain that at any moment I would hear a snap and we'd be falling again. It was during the free fall that my guide informed me that the camera strapped to his hand that he had been filming me with had crapped out. I was not evenly remotely upset about this. The adrenalin was still flowing like a river through my body and nothing could have phased me at that point. We spun around in the air a little bit before landing in a field where the Irish ladies were screaming.....Oh my god.

Of all the extreme sports New Zealand has to offer, I can understand why skydiving is so popular. Unlike the bungee jump, the decision to execute is taken out of the participants hand. And unlike canyoning, river surfing, and white water rafting the participant does not need to be even remotely physically fit. Basically, just show up and get on the plane and rest is done by someone else. It's definitely the quickest way to spend hundreds of dollars, but well worth it.