My First Jump

This past Saturday I decided to jump out of a perfectly good airplane with my buddy Ryan. I love crossing off items from my bucket list. Skydiving has been on that list for years. We decided to jump in Ogden with Skydive Ogden.
I had imagined there would have been more instruction involved with the jump, but there really wasn't any until just minutes before jumping out of the airplane. Going tandem was a blast. My tandem instructor, Ryan is also a bullet biker guy. We talked about bikes on our 20 minute plane ride up to elevation.
I was as calm as a summer day the entire time until it was my turn to jump out of the plane. My buddy Ryan jumped before me and as I watched him free fall, it hit me that I was next. Jumping out at 12,000 ft. was a little scary at first, but once we reached terminal velocity speed, free falling felt normal. Just before jumping out, my instructor Ryan said, "Ok, if everything goes well our chute should come out, and i'll see you when we land. If not, it was nice knowing you." I laughed and said, "ok. It was nice knowing you to."
We did some different kinds of turning maneuvers and did lots of spinning. The free-fall lasted about a minute.
Once the parachute came out, we floated around for about 7 minutes. I was able to control the chute and get a feel for it. You really need to be strong in order to tug on the cords. It was a lot harder than I had expected.
We also did a ton of spins. It was a lot of fun, and it was peaceful to be able to talk and look at the scenery. I do remember popping my ears a few times on the way down because of the atmospheric pressure.
Our landing was great. We both landed on our feet for a smooth landing. I told my instructor Ryan that I felt a little nauseous from the spinning. He replied, "me too." I think we were a little more extreme than he normally is with other people. The dizzy feeling went away about 5 minutes later.
Overall it was a ton of fun, and I would love to go again.