On Sunday, August 8th at approximately 5:15 P.M. at Freefall Adventures in Willamstown, New Jersey, I finally, finally achieved my dream that has been swimming through my mind since my first year at Rowan University: I FINALLY SKYDIVED!

What started out as a distant dream almost three years ago (when I was a poor college student), at last became one of the greatest experiences of my life (where I am now a poor college graduate) and a treasured, everlasting memory.

I honestly can not even touch upon and fully explain in words how surreal a feeling my skydive was. The fear, the exhilaration, the serenity…all the things you hear about your first skydive is all true. Throughout my experience, I had all of these emotions pulsating through my veins. Sometimes one after another, sometimes all at once.  

It all starts with the car ride leading up to the dive. The anticipation that builds during the drive to the airport. The fear that festers, churning your stomach into knots while you climb 2 and 1/2 miles into the Earth’s atmosphere, making you stop for a second and question yourself, “What the hell am I getting myself into?”

Next comes acceptance. While you’re flying, you look out of the plexiglass door of the plane, feeling the air from outside slipping itself through a crack and brushing over your face, you look down, squinting at the people’s houses below that have now changed into tiny grey and black dots amidst a series of little green squares of people’s yards and farmland and realize, “This is really happening.”

Jumping out of the plane, you surrender yourself to the situation. You realize you’ve gotten yourself into this insane predicament and the only thing you can do is enjoy yourself and go along for the ride. The moment you realize this, your body is overwhelmed by this intense calm…and at that moment, you feel at ease.

The jump is nothing other than surreal. Leaping out of the plane, sending your body traveling down to the Earth at 120 mph; sounds more like a plummet rather than a dive. Instead, the feeling that overtakes you during your jump is nothing short of grandiose. It may sound like a cliché, but the sentiment that consumes your body is nothing short of flying. No nervousness. No awkwardness. No fear. Just the otherworldly feeling of flying, slicing through the air at 120 mph. Just the feeling of such a smooth, gliding fluidity, comparable to swimming…through the air…only at 14,000 feet!

Skydiving is simply an experience of a lifetime. It is something I believe, rather something I KNOW, everyone should experience in their lifetime.  It is a moment in my life that I will always apprize. When I am at the end of my life, I know there will be a few standout memories I will reminisce about and smile upon. Spending time with my family, my first dog, Lucky, going to Europe with my girlfriend, vacationing in Cancun with my friends, when I get married and have kids (although not for a long, long, long, long time) and my first skydive, which will absolutely be a part of my valued shortlist.  

To deprive yourself of such an adventure would be a crime. Skydiving is one of the only activities you could perform that is able to elicit such a wide spectrum of emotions. Fear. Exhilaration. Serenity. Skydiving allows you to feel life itself. Skydiving is not a sport for the lethargic. It is not something to be experienced by someone who is just idling in neutral, waiting for their life to pass them by. It is instead something to be experienced by someone, looking to enjoy life. It is something to be experienced if you are looking to LIVE.

 

With my skydive set, my jump-time reserved, my jump DVD and stills paid for in advance and dressed in my skydive gear consisting of my harness on my body and an altimeter on my left hand, my skydive was simply not to be.  Maybe it was a sign.  Maybe it was the wrong place, wrong time.  Maybe it was just bad luck, but my skydive was not destined to happen…for now.

Like something you see out of a Judd Apatow movie, time after time, after time, whenever I attempted the jump from Freefall Adventures, my jump was ultimately cancelled, leaving me with a dumfounded look on my face saying, “What the hell?”

Heres a timeline of when I was scheduled to jump, yet in the end most likely ended up sitting on the couch:  

• August 29. 11:00 A.M.:  Jump cancelled by Freefall Adventures due to rain in the forecast (my disappointment is born).
• September 3. 5:00 P.M.:  I was forced to reschedule my jump after having to have sutures removed (my disappointment is now festering).
• September 7.  3:00 P.M.:  After arriving at Freefall Adventures at 2:45 P.M. and literally sitting around for over three hours, watching two groups jump before mine, my girlfriend and I are told at 6:00 P.M. that our jump has to be rescheduled due to…clouds in the sky.  REALLY!  CLOUDS IN THE SKY!!  (my disappointment is now raging with anger beginning to grow).
• September 10. 10:00 A.M.:  After calling Freefall Adventures for half an hour, Abby is able to speak to a receptionist, while we are driving to Williamstown, only to find out that our jump would have to be cancelled due to an abundance of strong winds (my disappoint is not at its climax, my anger has subsided to an overall felling of disbelief and humility).

My initial feeling after my jumps didn’t take place was, “What the hell?”  How could I feel anything differently?  Everytime I tried to make my jump, my dream was squashed and put on hold for another date that would only, yet again, be delayed for another date sometime in the unforeseeable future.

Will I ever skydive?  I can only answer that question with a resounding YES!  When will I jump?  An answer to that question is more difficult to forecast.  My jump will happen.  And when it does, I will be sure to blog and post videos and stills about it.  I promise to make everyone a participant in my jump when the day FINALLY comes.

Chas Maraldo skydiving from Freefall Adventures

The date has been set.  The time has been scheduled.  The jump has been booked.  I AM FINALLY GOING SKYDIVING!  What has been a two year quest to achieve my ultimate goal and swallow my pride to skydive is finally coming true on September 3rd at 5:00 P.M. in Williamstown at Freefall Adventures.

Why now?  Why on September 3rd?  The only way to answer those questions is to say, I simply could not wait any longer.  The more I talked about it and the more i thought about it,  the more I realized, I just needed to jump. 

Ideally, I would have jumped two years ago.  Alas, all the elements just didn’t add up.  Whether it be timing or money, I just couldn’t get it done. 

This summer, everything just seemed to connect.  I figured, I just graduated, I’ve been talking about skydiving more than ever, I need to celebrate and live a little…no more excuses, no more reasons why the time isn’t right.  After putting aside $20 every week for the last couple of months, I finally had the funds to jump. 

As I went online to Freefall Adventures’ website, knowing this was it, fear set in.  Going towards the keyboard to click, “Pay now,” my hand started to shake, my heart began to palpate out of my chest and I thought to myself, “Am I really doing this?  What the hell am I thinking?  Am I really going to jump out of a plane?”  Even with all the hesitation and reluctance swirling around my mind, in the back of my head, I knew I had to finally do it.  There was only one road that laid before me. I had to skydive.   Closing my eyes, I forced my fear aside and plunged my pointer finger towards the keyboard.  When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by a message saying, “Your payment has been received!”  Letting out a sigh of relief, I knew I had done the right thing.  I knew I would finally accomplish what has been my dream.  I am FINALLY skydiving.

The taste of skydiving is lingering again for me. 

image courtesy of skydiving-granny.com

I know it has been a while since my last post on Out of the Blue, and I’d like to start off by saying, “It’s good to be back!” 

For lack of a better reason, my absence from Out of the Blue has been due to my lack of realistically achieving my goal that I originally stated in my first post, “Birth:” taking the jump and skydiving for the first time.

This has been something that I have yearned for for quite some time.  It has always seemed to me that skydiving would be the greatest thrill of a lifetime.  The ultimate rush.  The ultimate experience.  It has been something I have been craving, that up until last September, was only a dream. 

This was true until I enrolled in my Online Journalism I class, under Professor Mark Berkey-Gerard for my senior year of college at Rowan University.  He gave us a simple assignment to begin the semester: Think of an interesting topic for a blog.  A week later, Out of the Blue was born. 

To be honest, skydiving was not the first topic that came to my mind when introduced to the subject.  I originally thought I would just blow off the assignment and take the easy way out, and just blog about my woeful Dallas Cowboys and even more upsetting misadventures of my beloved New York Yankees.  But then I figured, “Why BS the project?  Why not create a blog on an interesting subject that I would like to learn more about?”  So, I did.  I took a subject that I always wanted to participate in and learn more about, and immersed myself in it over the course of my ’08 Fall Semester.

Over the course of the semester, my love for the sport grew by leaps and bounds.  With every fact that I learned about skydiving, my desire to achieve my dream intensified.  My fascination for skydiving had festered into a necessity, a need to achieve my goal and go skydiving.

It first appeard that I would take the plunge sometime around the end of my Fall Semester, right before Christmastime.  However, after an unfortunate chain of events, including being laid off from my job of over two and a half years, I was financially unable to achieve my goal.  It seemed, for the time, that my dream was dead (inserst sappy violin chord here).

With a new season, came new opportunities.  I recently found another steady job and decided that I didn’t want my dream of skydiving to only be a dream anymore.  I didn’t want to become one of those people to look back on their life and say, “If only I did this with my life.”  I wanted to know that I lived my life to my fullest and I wanted to  be unapologetically happy.  I wanted to live my life.  I wanted to make my dream a reality.

So, I started pinching pennys, cutting out unnessecary expenses and more importantly, putting a certain amount of money aside every week in my “skydiving fund.”  Currently, I am about 3/4ths of the way towards my goal.  With every penny saved, my dream becomes all the more realistic.  Seventy dollars more, and my dream will finally come true.

As I get closer to finally skydiving, I feel my emotions stirring in my body.  I anticipate the nervousness of taking off in the plane.  I start to second guess myself, thinking only a fool would choose to leap out of a perfectly sound plane.  I have these feelings and then I think to myself, to hell with fear: THIS IS THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME.  At that point, a smile begins to grow on my face, and I am happy

When I started Out of the Blue, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  Blogging seemed like an obscure medium to me.  I thought of it as something people did while slouched in front of their computer, wearing a nacho-cheese stained Lord of the Rings t-shirt.  As I found out throughout the semester, that is not the case.

I now have a new outlook towards blogging.  I now think of blogging as a type of “interactive” newspaper.  With blogs, you are able to really connect with your audience.  I could post whatever I want, whether it be  a print article, photo, or video, and have people comment on it simultaneously. 

It is simply a great medium.

Since starting Out of the Blue, I have learned so much about skydiving.  At the beginning, I knew nothing about thte subject.  Where I stand today, I know the basics about the sport.  Terms I had not a clue what they meant like tandem dives, AFF, altimeters (they gague your altitude in the sky!)…I now know what these words mean.

Throughout my Fall semester at Rowan, I have had my hits and misses with Out of the Blue.  My poll, really didn’t work out too well (polls tend not to be too great if people don’t participate).

However, there are a handful of posts on Out of the Blue that I am extremely proud of.

The following is a list of some of my favorite posts throught the semester. 

• Our Ingrained Thirst for Adrenaline
• Skydiving and All It’s Wonder Caught on Video
• Skydiving Interview from a Pro
• Why Not
• Franz Reichelt (The Flying Tailor)
• The History of Skydiving
• Why

Blogging has been a great experience.  My time working with Out of the Blue has been a memorable period.  This has been an experience that I have honestly loved.  I promise that Out of the Blue will continue to bring you information on the skydiving world.

Until my next post, see you soon, and thank you for visiting Out of the Blue.

Throwing yourself out of a perfectly safe plane, 2 miles up in the atmosphere.  Plummeting through the air at over 130 MPH.  Freefalling without a shred of safety other than an over-sized piece of cloth that violently ejects out of your backpack.  Gambling with your life at 14,000 feet.  This is not sanity…this is skydiving.

Skydiving is one of the rarities in life where people are more inclined to throw rational reasoning of safety behind and gravitate towards certain danger zones.

 In contrast, people usually try to side-step dangerous environments.  If there is a burning building, people try to escape.  If there is a shark in the water, people try to exit, and get back to the shore.  So what is it about skydiving that makes people voluntarily take a possible life-threatening risk?

According to Laurence Gonzales’ article, “Why We Crave Risk,” on the National Geographic’s Adventure Blog:

“We crave comfort and security.  We crave novelty and exploration too.  We crave calm and excitement, and we even crave fear…They are not contradictory. They are intricate, interdependent forces, working together to make what we call life.”

It’s a known fact that people love to take risks.  Whether it be along the lines of extreme sports such as someone jumping out of a plane while skydiving, or someone skating a 25 foot high half-pipe to perform the “ultimate stunt,” or more common behaviors such as carelessly speeding down the highway to get to work on time, the need for danger is always prevalent in one’s life.

There is a reason behind our need for danger.  People’s motivation to crave risk is not due to socialism or any type of conditioning, but instead a more basic and simple human desire:  The desire for adrenaline.

Experienced skydive instructor, Sebastien Lalaza, suggested that skydiving might be the ideal outlet for people to quench their thirst for adrenaline.

“[The reason] why people skydive is to get an adrenaline rush.  It’s an extreme sport.  Maybe people go because they have something to prove to themselves.  Above all things, skydiving is a thrill.”

The need for adrenaline is part of the basic human desire.  It is a simple part of the human brain function.  Our need for adrenaline stems from our cerebral cortex, located in the brain’s frontal lobe. 

The cerebral cortex is one of the various sections of the human brain.  Our brains are divided into different parts; each section with its own function and job to complete. 

Compare the brain to a car.  Like a brain, your car runs due to the combination of various unrelated parts all working together in unison.  The engine, transmission, brakes, and etc., are all symbiotic of each other, working together to get the final product to run smoothly.

The human cerebral cortex is responsible for a variety of various actions we take daily, including some of our more risky behaviors.   Some of the primary functions of the cerebral cortex include the ability for us to be aware of the actions that we take within our environment (better known as our consciousness), the ability to make decisions regarding the actions we take in response to our environment, as well as the ability to control our emotional response.

Queen’s University psychology professor Gerald J.S. Wilde in Ontario, Canada, presented a theory to account for why it is that people crave risk.  His theory titled risk homeostasis, explains that people subconsciously have a never-ending desire for risk. 

According to Hubpages.com:

“The theory of risk homeostasis states that an individual has an inbuilt target level of acceptable risk which does not change.  This level varies between individuals.  When the level of acceptable risk in one part of the individual’s life changes; there will be a corresponding rise/drop in acceptable risk elsewhere.”

The key phrase in that quote is “acceptable risk.”  People need acceptable risks in their lives.  Such as a skydiver  jumping out of a plane, or a thrill-seeker at a theme park riding a roller coaster, people want to take certain risks in their lives.  Without these adrenaline-inducing risks, life would become mundane and ordinary.  These risks are the spice of life.

A reason why such risks could be called “acceptable risks,” could be due to the fact that there is no present high level of danger.  Sure skydiving and roller coasters have the possibility of being dangerous, but in all reality, they are safe.  The factor that separates these relatively safe activities from more risky behaviors like running into a burning building, or swimming with sharks is the presence of a “safety net.”

With skydiving, you have a parachute, and if anything goes wrong, a reserve chute.  Roller coasters have routine maintenance checks and restraints to hold you in while you are on the ride. 

As Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, said in the 1999 film Fight Club, people need a blanket to feel safe and secure.  To paraphrase Tyler Durden, you need to let go of that blanket to feel free.  If you don’t then you will feel enclosed.  Caged in a world of boundaries.  It is for that reason why people choose to take the jump and go skydiving.

So we now know risk is ingrained in our human psyche.  Like anything else, love, happiness, sex, and fear, risk is an aspect of our lives that we are constantly trying to encompass in our lives through pushing ourselves, seeking our next adrenaline fix.  As it can be said, skydiving not be the most logical action for someone to perform, but it is without a doubt, a sure-fire way to quench your adrenaline needs.

On Out of the Blue, it is my priority to make posts that contain some type of journalistic merit.  Whether it be news, skydiving locations, or skydiving prices, I have tried throughout my Fall semester at college to present “newsworthy” info to my audience.

However, the current post that you are reading contains absolutely no journalistic merit at all.  Since this will be one of my final posts for the semester, I wanted to have some fun, and just post something for amusement purposes.

The following are just some amusing / shocking videos that I found while surfing around on You Tube that deal with skydiving.  Enjoy…

Extreme Skydiving: A man skydiving over a mountain!?

400 Way Skydiving World Record: The world record set in Thailand in 2006 for the largest in-air skydiving formation

 

My first skydiving and my parachute malfunctioned!: A girl’s first ever skydive experience from (coincidentally) Freefall Adventures in WIlliamstown

 

Parachute: No explanation other than, this guy is crazy.

 

Skydiving Granny: The video’s hilariousness speaks for itself (video dedicated to Ellen)

Last Tuesday the Fredericksberg United States Parachute Association declared two skydiving deaths the Orange County Airport unrelated and purely due to human error.  The deaths, which both took place less than two months from each other on Sept. 21 and Nov. 1, sparked some controversy and a question whetherany criminal activity was present.  An ongoing investigation with the Virginia state police is however still in progress.

 

A 23-year-old skydiver was killed while skydiving on Sunday morning in Nylstroom, South Africa.  The anonymous man was pronounced dead to to a high speed impact with the ground after his main chute and reserve chute failed to open.  The man was a licensed skydiver of the Parachute Association of South Africa, having experienced 98 jumps.

 

One of the more recent skydiving accidents which left two survivors with five people dead in Brisbane, Australia was found to be due to malfunctions with the group’s Cessna 206 plane.  Shortly after takeoff, the plane’s right wing clipped a nearby tree, sending the plane crashing to the ground.  Queensland coroner, Michael Barnes, discovered the Brisbane Skydiving Centre had witnessed a number of unsafe practices in relation to the plane. 

A list of the planes problems include:

• The aircraft was about 245lbs. overweight at the time of takeoff
• None of the passengers were wearing harnesses or helmets
• Incorrectly stored fuel which was used for the flight
• A partial engine failure occurred during takeoff

About a month a ago, I had made a post about a guy named Johnny Rippert.  Rippert, a bus driver in Philly, received a gift certificate for a free skydive three years ago from his sons as a birthday present.  Long story short, he said he loved it and it was an amazing experience, yet he has never went skydiving since.

The whole reason for the Johnny Rippert interview was to give the Out of the Blue audience the point of view of someone new to the sport.

I thought it might be interesting to contrast an interview of a novice skydiver to that of a veteran.  That thought brings me to Sebastien Lalaza.

Lalaza works a self-contracted skydiver who spends most of his time working at Freefall Adventures in Williamstown, New Jersey.  Lalaza’s life has been intertwined with skydiving for over 18 years.  The following is his interview that took place Thursday afternoon:

When and where did you first skydive?

- When I was 17.  If I remember right, the place was called Skydive Long Island.

What got you into it? 

- My buddies were going skydiving and I always wanted to go.  

What method did you use on your first jump? 

- Tandem [jump].

What made you go with a tandem jump?

- I knew tandem jumps were the quickest method.  AFF (Accelerated Freefall) was too much money and took too much time.  AFF is good if you have the time and the money, but when I first went, I just wanted to jump right away.

What was going through your head leading up to the jump?

- I thought it was very scary and felt like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  When I got into the plane, I felt like didn’t want to go.

How’d you feel once you were in the air?                                                                                  

- I felt relieved.  It was a real thrill…almost like a roller-coaster.

When did you become a certified skydiving instructor?                                                            

- After I finished all my training in 2002.

What are the qualifications to become a certified skydiver?                                                     

- You need a minimum of 500 jumps, be experienced 3 years in the sport and at least 24 hours of freefall.

Does it pay good being a skydive instructor?                                                                            

- It doesn’t.  I’m a self-contracted skydive instructor who works at different places.  I actually used to work in the Army as a paratrooper and took a major pay cut to be an instructor.

What made you leave being a paratrooper behind?                                                                   

- I like being more hands on with the people and being along for their ride.

Do you have the authority to tell one of the customers that they’re not allowed to go skydiving? 

- Yes, absolutely.  If I see someone is not up to go skydiving, either physically or mentally, I get to say if they can go or not.  It is my prerogative to look out for my divers’ safety.

Other than Freefall Adventures, where here else have you worked in the field of skydiving? 

- I’ve been all over the country.  I’ve been in California, New York, and Florida.    

Why would you leave the beautiful weather in California or Florida?  What made you end up Freefall Adventures? 

- ‘Cause of how good Freefall [Adventures] is.  Freefall Adventures is the biggest skydiving sites on the East Coast and is one of the three biggest sites in the country.

Why do you think people skydive?

- Everyone has their own personal reasons.  Here at Freefall, we get people that go for all types of reasons.  We’ll have the grandmother who jumps because she’s been wanting to go her whole life, to the college kids who jump to get a thrill.

What do you think is reason for most people to skydive?  Is it for a thrill or a more calming, spiritual feeling? 

- Most do it for a thrill.  I see a lot of people that’ll go one time and won’t come back to do it again…It’s something to take off the bucket list.

What do you think when you go skydiving now?

- I love it.  I get a thrill from it every time I go.

Do you ever have the fear in the back of your mind that something might go wrong?

- All the time, but I do everything I can to make sure nothing will happen.  I want to make sure everything is in a good state before we jump.  We check the gear before any jump, and all the equipment has manufacture’s approval and have met safety regulations.

Is it cold when you’re free falling?

- It’s one degree colder per every 1,000 feet up.  So on a day like today [at about 36 degrees] when it’s snowing, the air’ll feel like it’s about 28 or 29 degrees.  

Does the cold air get to you?

- Not at all.  You don’t even think about it.  The adrenaline kicks you and overtakes you.

What is your overall synopsis towards skydiving?

- Skydiving might not be be for everybody, but everyone should try it once in your life.  You might not care for it too much, then again, you might have the time of your life.

When I started Out of the Blue, I set out three goals for myself:

• learn more about the sport that I truly love, yet have never experienced
• report on skydiving and more specifically, the general South Jersey skydiving scene
• actually go skydiving myself before the end of my Fall semester at Rowan Univeristy

When I started this blog, I knew next to nothing about skydiving.  Tandem jumps, AFF, altimeters…These words meant absolutely nothing to me.  

I feel that since the birth of Out of the Blue, I have accomplished two of my three goals.

 I now feel comfortable having a conversation about the sport with an expert who has been involved with skydiving for years.  I no longer get that apprehension and feeling of clumsiness when I have a conversation about skydiving.  I no longer have that nervous, journalistic anxiety where I have to ask over and over and over again, “Can you explain that for me,” or “What exactly are you talk about.”

Maybe others would disagree, but I feel like I have given an overall perspective about skydiving news around the world and in South Jersey.  I set out to give general information to those who consider themselves a skydive novice, from a skydive novice.

That brings me to my last goal: experiencing a skydive.  Sadly to say, this semester, it is not to be.  As much as I am dying to experience a jump myself, it is not a reality that can be achieved in the near future.

When I started Out of the Blue, my skydiving funds were slim to none.  I tried to save up as much money as possible to take the jump but with gas and car insurance and tuition and…you get the point; it just was not possible.

When it looked like I wouldn’t be able to go, I held out hope that I would be able to scrape together some money from my two day a week job as a detailer at Honda of Toms River. I was optimistic.  I believed with my job and the $50 in donations I received that I’d be able to go.  That was until I was laid off from my job last Friday.

Due to the recent economic problems and just the time of the year (car dealerships tend to lose a lot of business during the Fall and Winter seasons), Honda of Toms River and other Bob Ciasulli-owned dealerships are cutting all corners and having massive layoffs.  Just this month, Honda of Toms River has had over 15 layoffs, fired their general manager, and started buying from a different water supplier because Poland Spring is too expensive.

Enough with the rant…

Since Friday, I have been scrambling for a job that can pay the bills.  My funds for anything, skydiving, bills, whatever, are almost nonexistent.  I truly wish that I had the available funds to go skydiving before the end of this semester, but no matter how optimistic I could be, it will just not happen.

Even though my dream has fallen out from underneath my feet in a sense, I still plan to follow up with it.  I’ll have money at one point…I know that.  When I do, I will make it a priority to finally gather up my money and muster up the courage to get into the plane, stare out at the ground 14,000 feet below me and let myself go.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout all of this and everyone who has contributed to my jump in any way.