Skydiving, Aquarium

I redeemed my Birthday gift from Chloe today, at long last. We drove down to the hangar that houses Skydive Monterey Bay(in our new Prius!), but upon arrival were informed that there would be another few hours of waiting. The catch is that they want you to wait AT the hangar, where there is pretty much nothing to do except watch people pack parachutes and gripe with other people about the lack of organization. Instead of waiting, we hopped over to a nearby deli to grab a sandwich, and soon enough I was getting the quick five minute training on what was about to happen. Chloe had ordered videography as part of my package, and to the video guy's credit, he was doing his best to get me visibly psyched up for my impending doom. I was actually very excited, but tend not to be effusive in a way that might make for good TV, but I did my best. I think they were looking for more whooping and shaka's than I was able to earnestly deliver. At any rate, we were soon on board the twin engined turboprop and packed in like sardines on two long benches that ran the length of the cabin.


The plane was quite fast and had us up to 15,000 feet very quickly, at which point (or shortly before), my instructor cinched all the straps that connected me to him. I found the experience of being strapped to another dude to be vaguely humiliating, by the way. Any self consciousness about the indignity of it all or at being a human backpack was soon replaced by the very cold air rushing by and the fantastic views.



The videographer was spinning around us for most of the way down, and I gamely gave the thumbs up sign to humor him. At one point, I was given the parachute controls and turned us gently to the left, and right before being instructed to pull down hard on one of the straps. This put us into an dramatic and fun-at-first spin, and it felt like we were almost horizontal for most of it. Soon enough, however, I was starting to feel a little queasy from the spinning and was happy to come in for a landing

All in all it was pretty fun. The instructor and videographers were excellent, but as many other people have commented on Yelp: the front office is seriously disorganized.

From Marina, we drove to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and paid (ok, we let grandpa handle it) the extortionate admission fee and wandered around with Zoe. At fifteen months old, Zoe is really noticing things around her, and she *loved* the aquarium -- pointing her finger at various fish and staring transfixed at the schools of fish. Her favorite seemed to be the open ocean tank, with the tuna and sardines