Welcome to Michael’s Blog!

Here are some fun pictures I took after my dives on Saturday. I LOVE Skydive Utah...they are so cool and considerate. They really care about you and your safety. I am fascinated by how they pack the parachutes.

The whole fear of skydiving is also very interesting to me. When I first did it I was absolutely terrified out of my mind. However, if you look at the statistics, you have a MUCH better chance having an accident in your own car or in the airplane ride before you jump. Most of the fatalities that I have read of (about a dozen or so a year) happen because the diver was doing something stupid and not following procedure. Granted, talking about getting killed skydiving probably isnt comforting, but the number of people who die in cars (60,000+ in the U.S. per year), or after being attacked by deer (65+ a year), or noodling (catching catfish barehanded), 70+ a year, puts it into perspective. The possibility of equipment failure is extremely remote, although it does happen, there are still backup plans.

When you jump, you have 2 chutes, and your backup has a program that will open if you do not trigger the chute at a certain altitude, so you can be completely unconscious and one of your chutes will open.

The more I talk with the instructors, the more I am convinced this inherit fear of skydiving is all mental. It is one of the more safe extreme sports.

Your first two jumps have to be tandem. This is where you are strapped into a harness and then locked to an instructor. Both of my tandems were done with instructors who had over 3000 dives each.

:) You know you want to try this!