On Friday, my friend had a life altering experience. I won’t elaborate because it’s not my story to tell, but she said she wanted to jump with me! The plan - we'd both do tandems the following day. I was so excited! She's going to jump! Woo hoo! Bright and early Saturday morning, I headed over to the drop zone to get the pricing information for tandem jumps. I picked up a brochure and price list.

Since I was there and it was another sunny day, I decided to hang out and watch people land. I wondered if I would be able to land standing up. I'd have to find out what the tandem jumpmaster was willing to do.  It didn't really matter!  Butt slide or stand up landing...I'm jumping today!  In FLORIDA! Woo hoo! It's going to be a great day!

While I waited, I glanced through the brochure and price list, $164 for a tandem jump and $85 for a video and stills. Not bad...

I looked up at the sky and noticed several open canopies. Cool! A few more appeared. That's when I saw a person falling toward the earth. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had been to Orange four times and I had never actually seen someone freefalling. A couple of seconds passed...no parachute. Everyone stood up and watched the guy coming to toward the earth.

I held my breath. After what felt like a lifetime, his reserve came out.  THAT was scary - my heart was racing!

Moments later, I witnessed a hard landing on an extremely small canopy. Ouch! The guy was very far away and about ten minutes later, I realized that he had not returned. I wondered if someone would go out and fetch the guy or if he was just on his own. What would happen if I got off course at Orange? Would someone come to find me? I decided that I would not tell my friend about these incidents until after our jumps - No need to upset her!