On Monday morning last week, I woke up at about 8am to go to Steve's brother's place, the place where I was suppose to meet them and be picked up a guy from the sky diving company we were going to for our very first sky dives! Woo hoo! Steve did all the planning for the sky diving thing, since it was his idea in the first place to do it, and he was more keen on doing that first before anything else. So I had no idea where were going, what company he booked for, and all the other nitty gritty details. The only thing I knew was that we could choose to do either a solo jump, where we jump on our own about 4000 feet above the ground, or a tandem jump, where we're strapped onto a qualified (hopefully) skydiver and we jump at about 10,000 feet above the ground. I would've liked the freefall of the tandem jump, but I also wanted the freedom to control my own parachute and go for an actual sky diving lesson, something which the tandem jump people don't have to go through since all they had to do is strap on tight and jump. So I went for the solo jump, which was good coz' Steve, Ben and Ben's housemate Derek, who came with us, all wanted to do solo jumps as well.
So we got picked up at 9.30am by a guy named John, who is apparently one of the founders of the sky diving company we were going to, called Ripcord. Along the way to the sky diving place, or the drop zone as they call it, we picked up a Norwegian guy called Jacob who would also join our group. And when we got there, we found that there were two other instructors named John, one of whom took us through the basic sky diving course which lasted most of the day until about 2 or 3pm. Using a prop of a plane wing, he taught us how to climb out of the plane before we jump. I would've thought all we'd have to do was to jump straight out of the plane, but I suppose considering it was our first jump, it was safer not to jump straight out as we could tumble around in the sky and get tangled up in our parachute and end up as a very messy omelette on the ground. So what we beginners had to do was step onto the plane's door step, holding onto the beam connecting the wing to the plane hull, carefully pull ourselves along the length of the beam as close to the wing as possible (so that the rough wind from the plane rotor wouldn't blow straight into us), jump off the step while hanging onto the beam, and then once we were given the green light to let go, we'd let go of the beam and enjoy the lovely view 4000 feet above the air. Of course, we were also taught how to control the parachute itself, and given all the worst case scenarios, like what to do if the parachute lines got tangled up, or if we were going to land on a building or a tree or somewhere else not nice and flat, or the ultimate sky diver's nightmare...the parachute didn't open! After getting through all that and John made pretty sure we'd gotten most of the details into our heads by giving us a small exam, we were all ready and raring to go. Unfortunately, we couldn't head right out and do it, coz' it was too windy to jump at the time, so we were forced to hang out and get more pumped while waiting for the wind to die down. At about 5pm, the wind had died down a bit, so we all donned our sky diving suits (with me being the only one in white while the guys all wore blue, and looked a bit like uniformed guys from the Village People), parachute backpacks, goggles and helmets. Our group was too large for all of us to go up in one plane, so Steve and Ben went up on the first plane, with an instructor, a cameraman to record all the fun, and the pilot (DUH!). After they had their fun, and poor Ben landed like 500 metres away from the target so he had to walk back a bit, the plane came back, and me and Jacob were on the second plane. The moment of truth had arrived.
They told us that some people had went through the whole day course, went all the way up in the plane, and then chickened out at the last minute. So I couldn't help but wonder if I would be scared enough to do that once I got up. But I wasn't actually as freaked out as I thought I would be. I was a bit scared, but not superbly scared, even when I looked out the plane window and all the houses below looked pretty darn small. I was screaming more with excitement than fear...but not screaming loud enough that the others in the plane could hear me because the sound of the plane drowned out my voice. The only thing I was really worried about was that my parachute wouldn't open, or something else would go terribly wrong. So as usual, I gave God a quick call and asked Him to make sure everything went all right, which, in all His usual grace, He did. A couple of funny mishaps did happen, but nothing too serious. Like I couldn't hang onto the plane beam long enough for me to get the signal to go from the instructor, coz' I wasn't strong enough to hold on. So as soon as my feet were off the step, I had to let go and let myself fall. Which was quite sad coz' I was hoping to give a look to the cameraman and yell "Geronimooooo!!!" as I let go, but ah well... I even hit my left thigh against the plane step as I fell too, but didn't feel it until much later due to the adrenaline. Even as I fell though, I still didn't feel any fear, coz' the first thing I was thinking was "Whoops, I wasn't supposed to let go so soon!". Then once my parachute was automatically opened and I saw that the lines were a bit tangled up, my second thought was "Ok, get kicking so your chute lines untangle, put your hands in the toggles and start steering this chute". After I did that, I looked down on the ground and was thinking "Where the heck is the landing target?". Which I couldn't find at first, but wasn't too worried about that, coz' I could hear John over the radio in my helmet telling me where to steer. Finally, I actually looked around, soaked in the view of the mountains in the distance, the sun setting and the fact that I was floating several thousand feet above the air, and I thought "AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Actually, I think I was screaming that more than thinking it. :P My second mishap occurred during my landing. I was actually supposed to pull down on my chute toggles a few seconds away from the ground, so my landing wouldn't be too hard. But John had also taught us to roll on the ground if our landing was rough. So for some reason, instead of remembering to pull on my toggles, I was thinking more of rolling as I got closer to the ground. So I ended up landing so loud, someone could've heard it a mile away! Luckily I did do a nice roll as I landed so I wasn't hurt at all. Well, it's sure something to get everyone laughing when they watch the video of my landing. Sure got Stuart laughing like crazy when I showed it to him, the meanie! :P But I landed pretty close to the landing target, which was a pretty good accomplishment for a first time sky diver...Ha!
Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of my actual sky diving experience, but only a couple of photos of me and the guys who were in my group while we were on the ground, in our sky diving gear. It's kind of difficult to take photos while holding on to the chute toggles. But being a photography person, I absolutely had to get some recording of it to remember it by, so I did buy a dvd recording of it. The cameraman had a camera attached to his helmet and he jumped out after me to record my jump, and with his nice fancy small chute, he could land before me and record my expertly executed landing. The dvd was really a ripoff though, coz' it cost $139 for a 15 minute movie! It's no surprise though, since they know people really want recording of their jumps, so they can charge pretty much whatever they want and idiots like me will still pay. But man, that price was just insane. Well, at least the movie looked pretty good, with cool music and good editing and all. And I am glad I have something to watch over and over, laugh about with my buddies, and prove to people that I actually jumped out of a plane. Wee ha! Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to get screenshots off the dvd so I can post it here, but with my limited webspertise, I think that may take a while. So I shall save the photos galore for the next and final part of my Brissy holiday... dolphin feeding at Moreton Island!
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