As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m not really much of a thrill-seeker. The idea of jumping out of a plane has never held an attraction for me. Was it something I was afraid of? Nope. I just didn’t quite see the point of it.

BUT. Now I’m in New Zealand, in the acclaimed “adrenaline capital of the world” where skydiving, bungy jumping, luge and dozens of other activities are a part of daily life.

I decided to jump out of a plane for two reasons – first, I did it as a cultural experience – it’s just the thing to do when you’re in Wanaka, New Zealand. Second, the views in the brochures were amazing.

Yes, I risked my life because I thought it would look pretty.

I booked a jump with Skydive Wanaka, one of the most heavily promoted attractions in the Wanaka and Queenstown areas. They had a good reputation and the photos were top notch. They also offer a 15,000 foot skydive, which is one of the highest available (there is an 18,000 foot dive at the Franz Josef glacier area).

The facility is located a few miles outside of Wanaka with views that are stunning even from the ground. High mountains, clouds and blue sky created a beautiful backdrop to start the day.

First up – the safety video, which also acted as a sales pitch for the photo and video package. Once that’s done, you get to choose the soundtrack for your video (if you’re having one shot).

After getting into the jumpsuit and harness, I got to meet the guy who was going to have me as a 180 pound strap-on, Jon.

“Is this your first dive?” he asked.

“Yep, yours too?” As you may have guessed, my dorky sense of humor stays intact even in the face of certain doom.

We chatted about friends from Los Angeles who skydive and he told me he had worked for a while in California at some of those same facilities.

Obviously no anxiety had set in yet. The others preparing to dive weren’t quite so lucky. Each of us had our own photo/videographer who was following the day’s journey. One young German was being interviewed and held his hand up to show the camera – if you had put a cocktail shaker in his hand, you’d have had a perfect martini.

We climbed into the little plane and took off from the facility’s airfield.

The flight itself was fantastic. Unlike a passenger airline, the plane doesn’t travel in a generally straight line. It just circles in tight little rings. Up and up and up like climbing a spiral staircase to Cloud City, with views that get better with each rotation.

Two of the women on the flight were hopping off at 12,000 feet. Up rolled the airplane door and as though they were being evicted by Noah, they got ejected two by two. We then had to put on oxygen masks because the air gets a bit thin above that elevation.

3,000 feet more and we were ready to rock. My ears were popping, the door on the plane opened up revealing nothing but sky for nearly 3 miles beneath, yet I still wasn’t nervous. I don’t say that to act all macho – I think it’s just confirmation of all those claims that I’m an emotionless void.

I was fully linked up to my dive partner by now. The photographer pushed out of the plane’s roll-up door ahead of us and dangled from the side of the plane, holding onto the rail on the exterior of the hull.

We slid forward until I was sitting on the edge of the aircraft. Here’s where some emotion leaked in. It wasn’t fear, so much as a feeling of “holy fuck, this is actually happening.” Before I could think of anything further, out we went.

The first part was the most intense. End over end, toppling with no ability to get your bearings. My stomach turned like it was the craziest roller coaster ever and, not for the first time, I wondered what would happen if I puked on the way down. Where would it land? Or would it just blow back toward me like spitting into the wind?

But within a few seconds, the guide chute deployed and we were in freefall. I had two sensations during that 90 seconds of uncontrolled submission to gravity: it’s really windy when you’re falling at 200km per hour and damn, it’s cold!! Temperature drops 5.4° F for every 1000 feet you climb, so there’s a decline of 80 degrees from the ground temperature to the point of the jump.

Time distortion made the 90 seconds seem to last for 5 minutes on the way down. I mugged for the camera a few times, the chute deployed and we started a slow, gradual tour of the area gliding gently with the wind.

Jon showed me how to control the direction of our descent by pulling the chute cables so we did a bit of zig-zagging and took in the scenery for the final few thousand feet.

It was a clear wind-free day, so we had a gentle landing although we came in at too much of an angle to pull off the feet first, stud landing that would have gotten us style points. Instead we slid across the ground and came to a stop right in front of the photographer.

The package include a fully edited video, featuring the songs I had selected. They have a list of approved songs – fortunately I found three of my favorites to include.

Enjoy! You can skip ahead to 2:30 or so, if you want to skip the preamble and get to the dive.