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A.nna
anna // singaporean. my dream is to some day live in a countryside and have a lot of dogs. reach me on
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Monday, June 23, 2014
Sydney Skydivers - 14000ft Tandem Dive I thought this deserves an individual post.. A respect for the particular sport I fell in love with, SKYDIVING. Honestly, it has been on my bucket list for the longest time. I wanted to skydive when I was in Europe 2 years back but it was quite expensive, well it was in euros and pounds so my budget didn't allow me to fulfill that one dream I'm both afraid and needed to do. I just came back from Sydney yesterday, and in all honesty, the city was lovely and filled with friendly people, but it's not my favourite. Without the skydive experience, this trip would have been nothing but a summer getaway. In this post, I'm specially highlighting the experience of skydiving, and which skydive company in Sydney which I DO NOT RECOMMEND. And I shall start with which company to not go for, let's just end this post with positivity so let's save the best for last. Initially I booked my skydive with Skydive Australia, they've great deals for skydiving and a legit website. I booked it for a Tuesday and chose to get picked up at Holiday Inn at 550am. So what happened was on Tuesday, I left the apartment around 5am and because it was before-sunrise-early, we needed to grab a cab which cost us AUD40 to get to Holiday Inn. FYI, their office opens at 7am which means from 550am to 7am, I have no one I can contact for my skydive. Nonetheless, I trusted them and waiting till 7am. No one came to pick us up! So we called their office, and to our surprise, there was air turbulence which means our skydive was cancelled. And FYI, we weren't notified and on average, Sydney's mall and shops open around 10am. Which also means we had to loiter around for 3 hours because it doesn't make sense for us to return to our apartment and rest because their shops also close around 4pm. It's okay. I understand and forgive them for Tuesday. But we told the lady over the phone, her name is Sharon, clearly that we would like to reschedule to Wednesday, and should there be any cancellations, do notify us as we have Aus' contact number. Let's cut the story short.. Wednesday, same shit. We woke up at 330am and took a cab to Holiday Inn, waited till 7am to call their office to find out again why we weren't picked up. To our surprise, their pilot was sick. I can totally understand if your pilot is sick and understand that a huge company like yourself has only ONE PILOT. Fine, it's okay. But my question is, why weren't we informed? Sharon claimed she texted us, but to be honest, I'm certain she took down the wrong number (we didn't gave her the wrong number, she had ID caller that displayed our contact), that's why we didn't receive any text (I'm certain too we can receive text because we could receive the cab booking details via text). Service recovery I received: No apologies, and Sharon insisted to refund us. Probably because I questioned her what any human being would said being awake since 330am, and she couldn't provide a valid answer. Why would I want a refund when I spent AUD80 on cab for two days? Yup, even if you refund me my skydive package amount, I still wasted AUD80. She emailed me awhile after with what I call the template service recovery email which ended with we hope you'd skydive with us in the near future. The first thing that came into my mind, which I stated in my reply to my dear Sharon, if you are not even able to pass on a notification to a client, how am I supposed to trust you with my life? So moral of the story is, DO NOT skydive with Skydive Australia. I mean it because I was so thankful I chose Sydney Skydivers. I understood from my Blue Mountain tour guide, Ben, that Sydney Skydivers are very popular in Australia, which I totally agree after my first tandem dive with them. They've experienced and great instructors to boost your experience. Now this is the exciting part - the whole skydive experience... We were picked up on time to head off to Picton Road. It was a huge land I supposed owned by Sydney Skydivers. There were around 10 people in the mini bus which kinda calm me down too because before a near-death-experience, to know 9 others trust this company, everything should be fine. Haha! Upon reaching, we had to submit our indemnity form which you agree that you wouldn't blame the company should anything happens to you. It wasn't as scary to submit the form, because you still have the chance to run out of the field back home. They announce shortly after that I was attached to Coby, which I highly recommend as your tandem instructor. Not only is he experienced (according to him, he had skydived more than 6000 times), he's good at calming you down by singing and the jokes. It did helped, because you still see the professionalism in him. After getting changed, we were walked to the aircraft. That is one moment that happened so fast. It was a short 30m walk, but you secretly wished it took 3 hours to reach. Up the aircraft, I was the last few the board, which means I am the first few to jump! To be exact, I was the 3rd. For the aircraft to reach the height of 14000ft above ground, by the way it's above clouds, it takes around 5 minutes. All I could think and feel was, damn! The last 5 minutes of my life and I haven't yet tell the people I love how much they mean to me. There was a signal light that blinked when it hits 3 minutes, and then 1 minute.. Coby started to clip on his harness to mine. I kept asking him to check again because most accidents happen because the diver slips out of the harness and not that the parachute does not open. (Source: Google) And when the 1 minute signal light lit up, tadaaaa, all that you've been dreading - the door opening for you to start jumping. That 1 minute HONESTLY felt like 2 seconds, I'm not kidding. Once Coby pushed me and himself out of the plane, it was a good one minute of free fall. I never thought free fall was that impact-less. Well, free fall sounds very scary because free means no limit and fall means fallllll. Trust me, it wasn't scary at all. And from the time I jumped out of the plane, that one second, yes I felt like this is it, my life is over. But right after that freaking second, is the best time of my life. I cannot find a word closer to fly to describe free fall. You feel nothing but the wind, the cloud and of course your instructor behind you. And it's true. Human have no perception of height after a few thousand feet high. It's true. You don't even know how high you are, and no one can tell you how fast you're travelling at. According to average stats, you're travelling around 200km/hr. BUT YOU CAN'T EVEN FEEL IT. All I knew and was running through my mind was I'm fucking flying, I'm a bird, I'm a plane! I was secretly hoping that free-fall could have lasted a while more after he pulls for the parachute. It was a whole different kind of fun after the parachute opens. Coby removed my goggles and allowed me to gear the parachute. I was spinning and turning in the sky, probably 7000ft high. One thought which I recall came into my mind when I was gearing though, if I fall now I'll still die. Lol! But death thoughts wouldn't leave your mind, I'm just saying it was death-worthy. Not exactly per se, but it was out of this world. Once I landed on the ground, I turned to Coby and said I want to do it again. And I meant it. He was just laughing it off. I didn't skydive the second time of course, I figured out I might as well skydive in a different country or state to have a whole different view. But from now on, skydiving would be in my travel itinerary. Not for Thailand or Malaysia, but probably the next few eastern or western destination. Lastly, not to forget.. Labels: australia, gopro, review, skydive, skydiving, sydney, sydney skydivers, tandem dive |
xx
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