skydiving @ north shore!

oh my goodness, today was the best day of my life. i went SKYDIVING in HAWAII at NORTH SHORE!!! probably the best place ever to skydive... and i had the most amazing experience!


a group of us from my dorm went to Skydive Hawaii at North Shore at 7am. this was my first time going to North Shore... it took us about an hour to get there. you wouldn't believe the views from the plane!


here we are at our Caravan Aircraft getting ready to board. you can see my skydiving instructor, Cece, to my right... it was a bit of a shock finding out i was going to have this lady strapped to my back after watching everyone else meet their attractive young guy instructors... but you know what? it was ok. and that's only because the first thing she said to me was "we're doing flips!"


i always knew i wanted to skydive, but i didn't realize how terrified i would be until i was up in the plane about to jump! i was last so i saw everyone fly out of the plane before me, and then i got to the door and looked down at the 14,000 feet of island and ocean below...


and then we jumped. and then we flipped. twice. OH MY GOSH!!!


i wish i could say i was badass and did everything with ease, but this picture pretty much captures my feelings about the free fall... i screamed with terror and not only that, but i wouldn't come out of the fetal position until Cece literally pulled my arms apart...


after we stabilized and i was actually conscious of what was going on, i had a freaking blast! here you can see Ben, my camera man, holding on to us so that he could get the best footage ever... i was so lucky to have him in charge of my skydiving documentation!


it was all smiles until we fell through a cloud, which i thought would be super fun but actually hurt pretty bad! it was so cold because of the altitude so the water droplets hitting us felt like ice pelting on my skin!


here we are floating over the North Shore! all i have to say is... thank god my parachute opened.


and of course i would be the only one to land on my butt...


jen and me after it all... what an adventure we had!!! :D

you can see more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038927&l=0edf9&id=1398780020

and my VIDEO!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX36BbXBYAE