Skydivving

Why jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane? This is a question quite rightly posed to you as you turn up at the airfield ready to do the exact thing that the question poses. Allow me to rewind a few days. Now we were in Queenstown we had decided it was time to do some of the crazy stuff associated with the town. We ummed and aahed and deicded we would do a skydive first, hearing that it wasn’t actually as scary as it sounds….yeahh. Well we went into the shop and booked one for two days later hoping that it wouldnt be cancelled as skydives are notoriously easy to be cancelled if there is low cloud, high wind, rain, poor light etc. Now skip forward two days to a bright and sunny and also brisk tuesday morning when we were going to jump out of a plane. Surprisingly, none of us felt nervous as we made the short walk to the shop from our hostel. Upon arriving we handed over the money which was a depressing act, but as we would soon discover, completely worth it. We went into some kind of briefing room where we filled out some forms alerting us to the fact we were about to fall 15,000ft and the risks associated with this. After everyone else had arrived and filled in forms etc etc, we bundled into a van and headed to the airfield. A nervy drive later and we arrived at, well basically a field with a building in it. Somewhat confused as to whether this was really where we would be skydiving from, we soon saw several dives come in to land, looking rather awesome as well may I add. I’ll now skip forward about 45mins, as were the second last to jump – we were called up to go through to the bit where you get kitted up and ready. After putting on our giant romper suits and looking particularly foolish, we each met our jumpmaster/instructor person who we would be attached to. They put on the harnesses, gave us gloves, goggles and hats and made sure we were ready to dive. We then had potentially the shortest safety briefing ever, which was slightly disconcerting considering what we were doing, which can be summed up as – make your body into the shape of a banana. Not feeling any safer, we were told to wait as our plane was coming back in to land. About 5 or so minutes later, we made the walk from waiting area to plane. During this time, your divemaster walks behind you, guiding you where to walk in realtion to the very old school front-propellor plane and there was a pretty good reason why. By doing this, you never get to see the parachute, and I never would have if Pete hadnt dropped one of his gloves as he got into the plane. My divemaster went and got it and in doing so I saw the size of the parachute – a tiny red backpack that was smaller than all of our daysacks we had bought with us travelling. Feeling slightly nervy now, I got into the plane, sat between my instructors legs and we took off. This was an experience in itself, as the diminutive nature of the plane meant all 9 of us (Us 3, our partners and 3 camera guys doing some solo stuff) were crammed in as it was and take off only meant everyone slided towards myself, who was at the tail end of the plane, about half a metre from falling out of the door. My instructor and I made small talk during the plane journey and I discovered that he had never been a passenger in a tandem skydive, he had only done it as the lead jumper. I glanced out the window/door and began to realise how high we were, waay above the mountains, at which point my instructor showed me his altimeter and I saw we were on 5,000ft high. WTF?! We were only 1/3rd of the hight we were going to jump from and it already looked a long way down. Soon we were climbing higher and higher and I got strapped to my instructor, by about 5 clips, which again was not completely reassuring, but I had faith – people do this everyday and don’t die, right? Another glance at the altimeter and were at 14,000ft, now this was high, waay above the mountains, clouds, everything basically. I goggled up and was ready-ish. The door opened and it was then I realised just what I was about to do. Throw myself out of an aeroplane at 15,000ft. The 3 camera guys went first and in a blink of an eye, they were in the plane, then had disappeared completely. Now it was my go. We shuffled to the door, and with my hands on my harness, head titled back and legs wrapped round the underside of the plane, I was hanging out of a plane, and should have been falling with the way my body was positioned, but the fact that I was attached to someone else was stopping me from doing so – for a few seconds at least. My instructor counted down from 3….2…..1 and that was it. In an instant I was falling. Falling at 200kph straight towards the ground. We hit terminal velocity within 12 seconds and I’ll be honest – it was fucking awesome. There is no worry, no sense that you are essentially plummeting to a certain death if the parachute doesn’t open, only realisation as to what you are doing and how unbelievably good it is. Eventually the parachute opened and after being loosened slightly, you are able to take in your surroundings, with the awesome mountains of Queenstown everywhere around you, all 3 of us couldn’t stop smiling. I landed first, then Pete and finally Sam and all three of us were grinning massively – and shaking from the adrenaline rush that comes with it. And that’s basically it. We threw ourselves 15,000ft out of a plane and it was epic.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.