freefall – Streaming thru America

This tune helps set the mood, so hit play and read until the video:

I’ve been an adrenelin junkie most of my adult life, so it figures that one day I would satisfy my urge to jump out of a plane (with a parachute, of course). But for whatever reason, I never took advantage of the opportunity…until now.

The opportunity came in the form of a birthday present from my sons, Noah and Nate, but with a long ribbon attached: we’d be skydiving in Playa del Carmen, which was my gift to them to celebrate their belated birthdays!

We all came from different parts of the country. Leah and I flew from Jacksonville to Charlotte–where we met Nate, who transfered from Seattle–and continued with us to Cancun, hours ahead of Noah’s direct flight from Philly.

We thought about the weather when we arrived at Vidanta on Saturday. Our jump on Monday was conditional on the weather spirits. The winds had to be just right, and a sunny day would be a bonus. On Monday we got both.

I reserved a car from the resort’s travel center on Sunday, and returned the next day with my family to pick up my VW Polo at 9 am. I was expecting the agent, but nobody was there except for two women from Columbia, who were already waiting with their family for half-an-hour.

When we compared itineraries, the Columbians mentioned they were driving to Chichen Itza. In my mind, I thought that my family deserved priority check out. After all, we had a briefing and a plane to catch at Playa del Carmen’s aerodrome at 10 am. But I wasn’t going to make a stink about it, because we planned our departure with a half-hour contingency cushion. Nevertheless, a spark of adrenalin delivered a dose of shpilkes.

Besides, none of that mattered at 9:15 am when the agent was still a no-show, and the concierge kept her distance when Leah approached her about contacting the agent to secure an ETA, so we could make alternative plans. Another push of adrenalin and my irritation level moved to agita.

We hustled to a tram stop to catch an achingly s-l-o-w shuttle to the resort’s transit hub, and hailed a taxi the moment we got our bearings. A time check revealed 9:30 am. Google maps predicted a 10 am arrival. My pulse was racing just a bit, and I was feeling verklempt. We traveled the road to Playa mostly in silence.

We celebrated our arrival at exactly 10 am (how does Google do it?)

Typical paperwork to indemnify the company was waiting for us, and after weighing in, we anxiously waited for our tandem partners to arrive from an earlier jump. Nearby, our chutes were being prepared.

Leah was driven to the jump drop on Playacar’s beach, while my sons and I met David, Jose and Juan, who we would trust our lives to.

Finally, it was time to jump! On the way to the airport (walking distance), I learned that David had over 2400 jumps, of which 500 were tandem. I was really looking forward to this!

After an official passed us through security with a wand, we caught up with our pilot and plane, a twin engine AirVan outfitted for eight passengers parked along a single landing strip. Once we were prepped on the flight and outfitted with harnesses, we boarded the plane. Soon we were barrelling down the runway and airborne.

Our free fall time was approximately 40 seconds, and we were hurtling toward earth at approximately 200 km per hour (125 mph). No wonder my face was stretched to the max. But after touching down only meters away from our landing zone, I knew that this was a birthday gift I would long remember…