What follows is an account of my first skydive experience. I managed to
raise around £650 for Multiple Sclerosis Society doing this
and here's what it felt like on the day of the jump:
We are waiting for our Cessna Caravan to land after the last
drop on a beautiful Sunday morning September 18th – the day I have
been looking forward to for the last 3 months. I’m nervously joking with my
instructors and the other skydivers, whilst going trough the freefall drills in
my head and practicing my parachute pulls. Our plane finally arrives, the roar
makes it difficult to hear each other. As I approach it from the back to board,
the immense power of the wind generated by the propeller wakes me up to the
reality, but I’m keeping the butterflies at bay.
I’m first in. I climb in and walk to the front of the plane
and sit down on the carpeted floor just behind the pilot. The plane quickly
fills up as we are tightly packed in and I feel a little like what a sardine
must feel, minus the brine. The door is shut and we are on our way. No welcome
announcement from the captain, no trolley-dollies checking your seat-belt. We
are instead welcomed by my senior jumpmaster, with a prompt apology for the
Vindaloo and Garlic competition that he took part in the previous night. Great!
You see as the atmosphere thins out, gasses tend to expand…
The runway is a simple grass runway and the take off is very
bumpy. We climb quickly and circle around back to the Dropzone for the first
victim to jump. His is a static line jump, the door opens and he sits down
inside the doorway with his feet dangling 5000ft above the ground. He complains
about the wind and almost hesitates to jump but then disappears out of the
door! And as the plane adjusts to its new weight, I’m almost sniggering to
myself- the sight of someone jumping out of a plane is still quite unreal to me
at this stage.
I manage to squeeze out a joke about the lack of service on
this flight… But even with all the inconveniences so far on this short flight
and the realisation that we are not going to be presented with the latest
duty-free offerings, I still have a silly grin on my face safe in the knowledge
that should anything go wrong- at least I have a parachute!!
The door is shut and the pilot throttles up and we are
climbing again. A few moments later we are above cloud level, the altimeter on
my hand reads 14000ft. The pilot brings the small plane back down to 80mph and the
door is opened again. One by one, the rest of my insane companions are wished
luck and as they scream “see yaaaaaa!” jump out. I’m next!
“Are you ready to skydive Alex?!!” screams one of my
instructors as he climbs outside and stands in the doorway. “Oh yeah!!!” I reply
as I position myself on the edge of the doorstep. The wind roar is deafening
and as I bring my head outside, the slipstream begins making caricatures with my
face. This is it, the longer I wait the further we are from the dropzone below.
I turn to my instructor inside “Check in!”, turn to the one hanging outside
“Check out!”, look forward and shout “Prop… Up… Down…” and as I say the next
word, only the first sound comes out “Aaaaaaaa!!!” as we jump and the plane
disappears.
This is where I struggle to find the words to describe to
you just how exhilarating these moments feel, and even if I had the words, I
don’t think they would be adequate. The sound is deafening as we accelerate to
terminal velocity. I turn to both my instructors and they grin back at me like
two lunatics. We freefall for about 45 seconds, these moments were so brief and
yet I learned so much- a truly soul awakening experience!
At 5500ft I pull my ripcord and my two companions disappear
downwards. It feels like someone pressed ‘Mute’ on the television of my world.
Everything is so quiet as my canopy opens up above me. I look up to examine it
for malfunctions and feel almost guilty to break this silence with the loudest
scream of joy, completely overwhelmed by the intense experience of freefall and
the realisation that I’m coming home! My descent takes a few minutes, gives me
a chance to fool about with the parachute, do a few turns and spirals and find
my landing spot. I guide the parachute in for the landing, whilst grinning like
an idiot. The ground moves faster and faster as I get closer to it, I pull down
on my steering toggles and both my feet touch the ground. Behold! For I have
returned with the sweetest landing I could have wished for!!!
Gathering up the canopy seems to take for ages as I struggle
to come to terms with what I have just done. I walk back and am greeted by my
wife, family and the new friends I have made these past 2 days. As I hand my
equipment back to the stores I am already finding out how much it will cost me
to complete my training and be able to jump when I want to. “I am definitely
coming back” I say with a big grin. And they smile back- they know what it’s
like…
So far I have managed to raise more than £600 pounds for
Multiple Sclerosis Society with the help of the generous people around me-
THANK YOU ALL that have contributed and supported me. I will keep collecting in
the sponsorships until the 18th November at www.justgiving.com/10000ft/ if anyone
still wants to donate to this worthwhile cause.
Blue skies to you all!
Posted some photos and the video on my website for those interested! [here]![Stick out tongue [:P]](/emoticons/emotion-4.gif)
You can never get rid of the butterflies, but you can teach them to fly in formation .::: www.justgiving.com/10000ft :::.
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