Diving with a SEAL

NOTE: The following is not an exaggeration and REALLY did happen exactly as depicted in the story. You can ask Bach if you don’t believe me.

My friend and forensic consultant Dr. Bachrach called me up this past Tuesday and inquired if I would be interested in jumping out of a plane on Saturday (October 9). Surprisingly enough, I get calls like this a lot. Of course I said yes, since it’s very rare that I get to have an adventure that I don’t have to plan, and it’s something I’ve wanted to try.

So Saturday morning I got up at the ungodly hour of 5 am, after only a couple hours of sleep. I’d been working on my midterms Friday night and then watched Key Largo, which wasn’t over until 3 am. I ended up watching the whole movie solely because I was hoping at some point Lauren Bacall would change out of those horrible espadrilles and put on a normal looking pair of shoes. It’s hard to explain the pain I suffered every time they showed her feet. But I digress.
The company we jumped with is called Sky Dive Orange[1], near Culpepper, VA. We were told to arrive at 9 am to undergo training before our jump, scheduled for 10 am. We arrived at the hangar at 830 am[2] and tried to check in for our jump. The woman working behind the counter told us (this is a direct quote, please note that capitalized words were screamed): “You guys need to HANG TIGHT for a couple of minutes and COME BACK LATER when I get done with these guys because it’s REALLY BUSY[3] and they need to get on a PLANE NOW and I’m TIRED because all my skydiving friends are asleep on the floor of my 600 SQUARE FOOT EFFIENCY and I HAVE A SINUS INFECTION but I HAVE TO BE AT WORK while THEY get to SLEEP ON MY FLOOR. I LOVE SKYDIVING!!!!!!!”

To which we responded, “Okay, we’ll be back.” We wandered around the inside of the hangar checking out all the bizarre people. One girl had the dirtiest feet I’ve ever seen and she was running around the hangar singing Elvis songs, complete with renditions of Elvis dances. She also rolled on the floor like a dog. Another guy seemed to have some version of Turret’s Syndrome, and on top of that another problem of itchy balls. Bach felt the need to inform me every time the guy was scratching himself, which was often and in between outbursts of swear words and Nirvana lyrics[4]. I kept looking at the clock wondering when we could get on the plane.

Finally, at 9:45, sinus infection girl came up to us and screamed “I’VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU!!!” Note that the hangar is an open room approximately 30 feet by 30 feet filled with a bunch of hippy looking freaks. Bach and I stood out pretty easily in our clean clothes and normal haircuts. She dragged us to a room and handed us 20 pages of waivers to sign. We did this while we watched a 15 minute “training” movie. Example dialogue, delivered by a guy who looked like a cross between the guitar player for ZZ Top and an elf, included such gems as: “You are attempting a dangerous activity”, “No parachute can ever be made 100% safe”, “There is no guarantee you won’t die during the course of a jump”, “Your jump instructor is not a lawyer and can not give you legal advice. If you are wondering if skydiving is right for you we suggest you go see a lawyer”. At the very end they did show someone jumping out of a plane. I didn’t feel particularly enlightened as to what our experience was going to be.

We had signed up for a tandem jump. That means you jump with an instructor to whom you are tethered. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having some strange man strapped up against my ass, especially after seeing the riff raff in the hangar. But I figured if Bach could do it, I could too. And the only other option for a beginner jump was a static line jump, which would have meant no free fall, which is what we really wanted to experience.

Our jump time of 10 am came and went, as did 11 am. Finally at noon, sinus girl screamed into the microphone “Frank Schullaferkekerterk, please meet your jump instructor in the front of the hangar”. I assumed she meant me and went to the front of the hangar where a couch that even the Salvation Army wouldn’t touch sat next to a foosball table. My instructor was named Paul, as he reported to me from his seat on the sofa. For our entire relationship (all 20 minutes of it) he never once removed his wrap around shades. He told me he was a retired Navy SEAL, which surprised me since he was only a little taller than me and probably weighed only 30 pounds more. He had been jumping with Sky Dive Orange for 5 years, and had over 2,000 jumps. Just to bust his balls a little, I said “Oh is that a lot?” Paul’s mouth formed a thin red line. Without acknowledging my comment he grabbed me suddenly by the shoulder and said in a rather sinister voice “Now you’re going to stand there and I’m going to put your jump suit on.” I asked if he dressed all his clients or just the blonds. He muttered something under his breath that I’m glad I didn’t hear.

The jump suit was a rather depressing black thing with more zips on it than a John Galliano dress (pre-Dior era). Trying to loosen Paul up a bit as he zipped me into to this funereal one piece, I said “I was thinking more along the lines of a light blue ensemble with maybe a dark blue parachute, more red blue than navy blue, and perhaps some yellow highlights, that makes the statement “Hey, look at me”, while at the same time saying “I’m part of the sky”. What color choices in canopies do we have?” Had I been a man, he probably would have punched me, but instead he said, “My chute is black and purple. You don’t get a choice in color. That’s my jump suit.” I realized that the lilac and black atrocity lying on the floor next to me, that I had been making fun of moments earlier, was his suit. Oops. He strapped me into a black harness.
After spending what seemed like hours buckling and unbuckling me into things (helmet, ugly glasses, harness, clothing, gloves, altimeter) I was finally fully loaded in all my horrible rental gear. Luckily I have a small head, and got to wear a kid’s helmet. Bach got stuck in a helmet that looked like a cross between something from World War II and a phallus. But his jump suit had little wings on it and mine didn’t. Bach was rather selfish about his winged jump suit and wouldn’t even let me touch it. He stood with his instructor, a guy named Sean, joking and laughing and learning how to pull the rip cord and steer. My instructor had taken off to somewhere in the dark recesses behind the hangar. Before he left, he had growled at me “You stand RIGHT HERE and DON’T MOVE until I come back. You WILL NOT walk past THIS LINE without me[5].”

When they announced that our jump group, Otter 6, had 5 minutes until take off Paul reappeared and grabbed me by the leg harness. “Come on!” he said, dragging me along like a dog by the choke collar. Bach’s instructor Sean was dancing around like a five year old at a birthday party, punching him in the arm and saying “Dude! Are you ready to JUMP??? Are you PSYCHED????” Bach kept turning around to look at me and grin as I was hauled across the runway by my leg straps. Fuck you, I thought to myself.

The plane was a small twin engine thing with a door at the back through which we were supposed to board. There was a set of five metal steps leading up to the plane floor. I got to get in first because I was the only female. Before I headed up the stairs, Paul grabbed my shoulders and put his face right next to mine. “Don’t! Walk! Into! The! Propellers!” he shouted, enunciating every word as if speaking to a moron. Since we were at the back of the plane and no where near the propellers I said “NO PROBLEM!” Then he said, “When you go! Up the stairs[6]! Duck your head!” He patted his head for extra emphasis, maybe worried I wouldn’t understand the word. Then he yelled “Because the ceiling! IS VERY! Low!” He made a chopping motion with his hand towards my head to simulate walking into the door frame or perhaps to gauge where he would sever my skull if given the chance.

I started up the stairs, and, just to be a smart ass, leaned WAY over to show Paul I was ducking under the door. He unceremoniously shoved me in the ass, sending me tumbling into a wooden bench. I started to sit down but he screamed “WAIT A MINUTE! YOU DON’T SIT DOWN UNTIL I DO!” Then he sat behind me and yanked me backwards between his legs[7].
Bach and Sean boarded next, in a much more convivial fashion. They sat on a bench across from us. Then three other jumpers got on. One, it turns out, is a weapons inspector and had been on C-SPAN the previous day talking about Iraq. We joked around about weapons of mass destruction, waiting for the pilot to complete his takeoff checks. When I leaned forward to get the C-SPAN guy’s name Paul yanked me back into his lap by my shoulder harness strap. I sighed, leaned against him, and looked over at Bach and Sean. Sean had clipped Bach’s harness into a series of hooks hanging off the plane’s walls. It was their version of a seat belt I guessed. I wondered why Paul, safety man, hadn’t seat belted me in yet. So I grabbed a hook and turned around to Paul and said “Should I hook my harness into this?” He exploded. “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!!!!” He grabbed my head and turned it so I was facing forward again and then put his arms around me so I couldn’t move at all.

Having nothing better to do, since I was more or less immobilized, I started playing with my altimeter. Sean was talking to Bach about the jump as Paul stared sullenly out the window. I decided to try to initiate conversation with him again.

“Hey Paul? I did want to mention one thing about the landing. I have this knee problem…”
“We will discuss the landing 5 minutes before the landing occurs.”

“Okay, but I just wanted to point out that…”

“We will not discuss the landing now. We will discuss it five minutes before it occurs.”

The jump was starting to remind me more and more of one of my really bad dates, except that I wasn’t on a date with Paul, I was just in the process of getting strapped so closely to him I could feel his appendectomy scar. As the plane took off and began ascending I looked around to take my mind off the strapping activities. I noticed one of the jumpers didn’t have any shoes[8] on.
“Where are your shoes?”

“I never jump with shoes.”

I looked at his pasty fat feet, assessing their down-pillow like qualities.

“You’re going to jump and land on those soft little things?”

He started railing about the fact that he has never jumped with shoes and has even landed on lava rocks while jumping in Hawaii in bare feet. Obviously this guy had the toughest feet north and south of the Mason Dixon. I was sorry I had asked.

When we reached 14,000 feet Mr. No Shoes opened the door and everyone got ready to jump. Paul and I went last, the best position because you get to see everyone else fall. He double checked my harness again, cinching the strap across my chest so tight I was sure my breasts would explode upon impact with the ground.

One by one people tumbled out of the plane. Then we were up. I tried to walk as elegantly as possible, which was not that elegant considering I couldn’t stand up straight in the plane and I had a Navy SEAL strapped to my ass. When we got to the door I felt the first rush of the wind, which was cold. Above the door was a metal bar that looked like the handicap bars you see in bathtubs. Paul hung onto the bar as we stood in the door.

According to the video we had seen, and a short instruction session given by Sean, I was supposed to line my feet up with the plane floor so my toes dangled out into the wind, locking my hands around the shoulder straps running down my chest. Then I was supposed to arch my back and neck as far back as possible. Once we were airborne I would put my legs up so my knees were at a 90 degree angle, and release my hands from the harness. My hands would then go to the sides of my body to help stabilize us as we tumbled 8,000 feet, which would take approximately one minute. Paul would open the chute between 6,000 and 5,000 feet and it would take another 4 to 5 minutes to hit the ground.

But as I began lining my feet up with the floor I felt Paul’s pelvis banging into me like Buick with bad brakes. The next thing I knew I was on my back staring up at the sky. I couldn’t breathe. We rotated around and suddenly I was facing the ground, still unable to take a breath. It felt like someone had turned on a fire hose and aimed it up into my sinuses[9].

Free fall doesn’t feel the way I expected. The air is cold and so dense it’s almost impossible to breathe, but the force of the wind is nowhere near the force of gravity. Stabilizing my body was not a problem, and my limbs didn’t feel like they were being blown around too much, but the feeling of dropping with a tremendous amount of speed was somewhat disconcerting. Air doesn’t feel like air, it feels like water. The sensation felt like someone had just tied a two ton anchor around my hips and then thrown me into an ocean crevasse off the coast of Monterey.

Paul turned us a few more times. Bach and Sean were way below us. They weighed more than Paul and I so they fell faster, and Bach had been allowed to pull his ripcord, which he had trouble locating, so their chute opened later than ours[10]. Paul pulled the canopy at about 6,000 feet without warning me first. One second we were spiraling around and down and the next second I heard a tremendous ripping noise. Before I had time to get nervous my harness jarred against my torso and I felt myself flying upward like a spring. The chute made a cracking noise as Paul luffed it, and then we came down hard again. I felt like a bug that had just been stepped on, wedged on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and stepped on again.

The tearing wind sound was gone and things were suddenly quiet. Too quiet, apparently, for Paul. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Yes.” I responded, glad that I could breathe again. I was surprised that we could speak in normal tones and hear each other. It was quieter than the hangar.

“How’s your stomach?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Now we’re going to do some tricks. Look, there’s the airport!”

I looked down. The airport landing strips were an obvious landmark, especially since they are in the middle of a huge field with nothing around it. The roof of Sky Dive Orange’s hangar was painted a bright orange, so that was obvious too. I could see Bach and Sean far below us. The altimeter said 5,000 feet.

“Now I’m going to loosen your buckles. You’re still strapped in so DON’T FREAK OUT!” He loosened the strap going over my chest and suddenly breathing became easier.

“Now I’m going to take off your helmet. You will remove your glasses and slide them around your neck. YOU WILL NOT DROP YOUR GLASSES. Then I will put your helmet back on and YOU WILL BUCKLE IT IMMEDIATELY. You will NOT FREAK OUT.” Without the glasses my eyes started tearing in the wind but it was better than having them pressing against my face. Everything seemed tremendously pressurized. The force of the fall was also pushing me into Paul.

Paul began to turn us in tight spirals. “WHEEEEE! Isn’t this fun!” he said. Fun like being shackled to Barney the Purple Dinosaur I thought. “Look at the chute!” he exclaimed. I looked at the canopy, not particularly enthralled. My curiosities about skydiving lay elsewhere. For example, I wanted to know if Paul had ever had his canopy attacked by a flock of birds with West Nile virus, but decided not to ask.

Paul said “WHEEE!” a couple more times as we executed turns. With each go around we turned on our sides and I would feel the pressure of gravity increase, pulling me down with a strange flattening sensation. He luffed the canopy a couple of times, stopping us in midair for a moment; we would start to plummet down until the canopy caught air. This caused my stomach to feel like it was being rocketed from the basement to the fifth floor of my body at light speed. It was kind of fun in the way I imagine doing crack cocaine is fun.

“Look, there’s the airport!” he said again. So I decided to spend the rest of our ride down constantly asking where the airport was, because I knew Paul would love that. After six or seven queries from me about the airport’s location Paul caught on and we both decided it was best to drift along in silence for a while. The feeling was not weightless and smooth the way I imagined it would be. It felt more like being a puppet attached to strings, dragged along by an uncoordinated child running down a flight of stairs with no thought for the safety of the poor puppet. As we got closer to the ground Paul wanted to know every five seconds how my stomach was doing. I promised him that if I was going to throw up I would let him know.
The last couple thousand feet he said I seemed to be a natural in the air because I was so comfortable, but I don’t imagine he gets many clients who spend a lot of time at heights. Most of the people in the hangar appeared to be having their one adventure of a lifetime. Some of the clients screamed from the moment they left the plane until they landed on the ground. I knew from the moment the free fall stopped that I would not be sharing their sense of exhilaration from the jump. I had hoped to get to steer or do something but Paul was afraid to let me touch anything. He told me that he’d had a number of clients freak out without warning. The two worst ones were Marine Corps officers, both of whom tried to kill Paul during the free fall.
Finally we approached the drop zone, swinging in tighter and tighter circles until we coasted softly onto the grass. My final request, which was to land on an ugly old blue school bus that I’d had my eye on for some time, was ignored. It was a beautiful and gentle landing. As we came in I leaned back as far as possible, riding Paul like a human toboggan through the grass and dirt. We came to a stop near Bach and Sean who were already canopy-less and standing. I decided to continue to lie on top of Paul for a moment, smiling because my elbow was digging into his abdomen.

“Oof. Come on. You need to get up.” With a shove I was sitting upright and he unbuckled me with light speed so he could more easily throw me out of his lap. I waited until he had gathered his chute and then we walked inside. As I piled up my jump suit, glasses, helmet, altimeter, and harness, Paul quickly shoved some tchotchkies into a manila envelope and then signed a tacky looking certificate for me that said I had performed a skydive in accordance with the Basic Safety Requirements of the United States Parachute Association at Sky Dive Orange.
“Here you go. You have to fill in the name. I can’t remember your name. I have a lot of clients. Good luck to you.” He shook my hand abruptly and left. We waited for Bach’s instructor so he could get his certificate but the guy was off doing who knows what. After about 5 minutes Paul came back.

“Are you STILL HERE?”
Bach explained. “Yes, we were waiting for my instructor. Can you go find him?” Bach’s request went unheeded; no one bossed Paul around. He grabbed the same stuff he had given to me for Bach and handed it to him. “Okay, that should be everything. Goodbye.”

We both managed to get out of the hangar before we cracked up laughing. On the drive home with both decided that the jump had been fun, but not the kind of fun either of us wanted to repeat. The best part had been the free fall. Maybe the jump would have been more fun without an instructor, because, as the saying goes, no skill no thrill, but it takes a couple of jumps to go instructorless. And unfortunately, the next step in skydiving after a tandem jump is a static line jump, which doesn’t involve any free fall at all. So I’m afraid our skydiving days have come to an end.

Anyway, what’s the point of diving with SEALS if there are no sharks involved?

[1] www.skydiveorange.com
[2] Since Bach is perpetually late for everything I allow extra time in the schedule to make sure he is on time. I blame his South American roots and his electrical engineering degree. Electrical engineers can explain everything to you, but don’t understand practical application of anything, to include “time”.
[3] There were two people standing at the counter, and they were still half asleep
[4] Nirvana is a poser band. Case in point.
[5] “this line” being the exit of the hangar
[6] to get onto the plane
[7] “He didn’t even bother to buy you a drink first,” Bach snickered later. And that’s the real reason why I drove his sports car all the way home without taking it out of fourth gear.
[8] The fact that I notice people aren’t wearing shoes IN NO WAY implies I have an obsession with shoes. Anyway, who wouldn’t be curious about what footwear was available for a skydiving inclined girl who could always use another pair of “sports related” shoes. Sports related shoes can’t be counted when assessing the total number of shoes a person owns, in case someone wants to make an issue of the fact that some people own over 300 pairs of shoes, which isn’t a lot really, but in fact just SOUNDS like a lot. Anyway, don’t you think YOUR obsession with my shoes is kind of strange?
[9] Sean told me on the ground afterwards that he tells his clients to take a breath before jumping out of the plane because this is normal during the free fall. Sean told me a lot of other things after the fact that would have been nice to know before the jump actually. But he was too busy strapping himself to Bach to help me out I guess.
[10] I found it unfair that Bach was seen as being more capable and coordinated than I. After all, have I ever gotten drunk and walked through a screen door at someone’s party? Have I ever gotten run over by my girlfriend when trying to take pictures of her sand boarding down a hill, thus crushing my hopes of competing in the NYC marathon this year? Have I ever dropped a 16 ounce glass full of beer on my date’s new shoes?