My Fourth Skydive!!
In February, 2000, I found out my sister was going to Florida in March to visit my other sister who lives in Orlando. By now 4 whole months had gone by since I last jumped. I was longing to get up in the sky again yet I was also getting quite nervous about starting AFF classes. Part of me would have been content to just do tandem jumps for the rest of my life, but a much bigger part knew I had to go for the solo jump someday. Regarding my first AFF jump I wasn't too concerned about the freefall part or pulling the ripcord. After all I would have 2 jumpmasters with me during that part. I wasn't even that worried about having a malfunction with the canopy deployment. Strangely enough I was most afraid of flying the canopy to the airport and landing. Everyone I know seemed to think that was really weird. But first of all, I had read all the statistics on skydiving fatalities and about half of them in recent years seemed to occur AFTER a successful chute opening. And I had also thought on my tandem jumps that one minute you are serenely floating down and that the next minute it was time to land and that ground seemed to be closing in awfully fast! I was afraid I wouldn't be prepared in time.
Anyway, I decided to go to Florida with my sister. I figured it was a good chance to check out the Skyventures windtunnel which I had read about and also to do one more tandem to get back in the swing of skydiving since it had been so long. I looked online and chose Skydive Daytona because they offered skydives onto Flagler Beach which I thought would be awesome. I made an appointment for Friday, March 24, at 10:00AM.
I had imagined not really being nervous at all on this jump because of how I felt on my third jump. But a few days before I left for Florida my 8 year old daughter came home from school very upset over something that had happened on the bus on the way home. I went in to her room and found her laying on her bed crying. I climbed up next to her and hugged her until she could calm down enough to tell me about the 2 girls teasing her. Then we talked about what happened and how it made her feel. Finally we got to joking about what we'd like to do to those 2 girls until we were laughing. I realized how much this little girl needed a mom. This got me worrying about something happening to me. It scared me, but not enough to change my mind.
I arrived in Florida on Thursday. My sister said it hadn't rained in ages and there was no rain in the extended forecast so I was excited. Doesn't it rain that night?????? Geez! The weather report said it should be clearing up though so we headed up to Daytona Beach. The DZ is actually a little north of Daytona in Bunnell, Fl. We go through a few pockets of rain but luckily as we get near the airport the sun is starting to poke through. It looked like I'd get to jump!
There were lots of people milling around and everyone was very friendly. I found the office and went inside and all I had to do was fill out the now familiar forms which I whipped through in less than 5 minutes. I didn't have to watch any video. I met my TM, Bobby, who seemed really nice and just went over a few things briefly since I had jumped before. He asked if I wanted to do some front loops upon exiting the plane. I said, "SURE!" I couldn't pull the ripcord because their gear wasn't set up for it but he did say I could do some turns if I wanted to. I told him about my broken tailbone and my landing concerns and he said to not worry about it at all. That we would have a really easy stand up landing no problem.
Then we found out it was high tide at the beach and because of a recent full moon there was no beach to land on. Bobby said I could wait a few hours and jump later at the beach or jump now at the airport. Since I was all suited up and excited to go... and because my sisters were waiting for me... I decided to jump then and just land at the airport. I just wanted to get up there and plus I figured some other day I'd have an opportunity to land on a beach.
At first it looked like we were going up in the Cessna since I was the only one going over the beach but then when our plans changed Bobby managed to get us switched to the Twin Otter which made me really happy. I know someday I'll have to jump from a smaller plane but I liked the bigger ones and now I will have gotten to jump from the most common bigger ones.. The Casa, the King Air, and now The Twin Otter. In no time at all we were boarding the plane and as usual for tandems I got to go in first and ended up in the very front of the plane so we'd be one of the last out. I just absolutely loved the feeling of being all squished in there on the floor of the plane with all the other skydivers. I'm not sure why but it just filled me with glee. I guess I loved being part of this crazy group of people who liked throwing themselves out of planes!
I was pretty calm once I was in the plane. I did keep rechecking my chest strap to make sure it couldn't come undone. I had read about a skydiver dying because their chest strap came undone and they fell out and another one where it came undone but they managed to hang in there. (I read too much!) I had already made sure I knew where all the ripcords were in case the drogue chute got wrapped around Bobby's neck like I saw on the Real TV video and as the plane was going up I started thinking about if he had an AAD on. (for non-skydivers AAD is an automatic activation devise that opens the reserve parachute if you've reached a preset altitude and you are going too fast... meaning your chute isn't open or something is very wrong with it!) I was afraid to ask at first because what if he said no?? .... I was going anyway, so why bother? lol But I finally did and he said all tandems were required to use them. Nahhhh, I'm not neurotic! I'm really a wimp at heart... I don't know what the hell I'm doing trying to be a skydiver!!
When we reached 5,000 ft. they opened the plane door and 3 skydivers disappeared out the door. It was pretty cool to see them sitting there one minute... then boom! They're gone! We circled around and 3 or 4 more jumped out. It was really neat because before everyone jumped they slapped hands and gave high 5's and there was a real sense of camaraderie and I loved it! Then once more around and 4 more disappeared. They were having a contest at the DZ that day for accuracy on landing thru these flags set up below. Then the plane continued on up to 13,500 ft. where we were jumping out. With the others gone we had a lot more room to move around. All the tandems (there were 4 of us) started getting hooked up. I couldn't wait to go!
Two young boys who I assumed were down in Florida for Spring Break went before me. I could see one of them's face as he stood in the doorway. Man what a look of fear on his face... but off he went! Then it was our turn. There was no rush getting out and I loved savoring the moment at the doorway looking out and seeing the ground so far below and knowing in a few seconds I was hurling myself out there! Because we were doing front loops I didn't have to think about getting into my arch position at first. I was suppose to stay kind of in the crouch position we were in in the plane until I heard him yell ARCH!
Out we went rolling over and over. I think I might have accidentally shut my eyes at first but I soon opened them to see sky then ground then sky then ground. I loved it! Then we arched and were falling in the normal position. For some reason it felt like we were falling really fast this time. I had a moment of quiet panic where I was thinking maybe the drougue chute didn't open. But just then I saw this cloud below us that had a beautiful rainbow circle in it. It was breathtaking! All of a sudden I realized I hadn't even looked at my altimeter! We were already at 9500 ft! I then relaxed a bit and enjoyed looking around at the scenery. It was the first time I had seen an ocean while skydiving. Then we started spinning a bit towards the left and I felt weird like we were unstable. It was probably all in my mind. The feeling stopped and I kept making frequent checks of my altimeter. I thought of trying a turn but I was really just enjoying doing nothing. And I still felt like we were falling faster than before.
For the first time ever I started thinking about the parachute opening and hoping there were no problems. All the other times a malfunction had never really entered my mind. I suppose it was because I had bought this video called "Breakway" which showed all the common malfunction and what you needed to do and how fast you had to decide if it was a breakaway situation or not. It also made real to me how much more difficult it is to make that decision and be able to do it when you are spinning out of control at 5,000 ft in the air rather than standing in your livingroom!
Anyway, we were soon at 5,500 ft and I signaled the wave off and Bobby opened the chute. Everything went fine! I looked down and there was that rainbow cloud and a silhouette of us with the parachute was dead center in the rainbow! It was so cool! Bobby helped me practice steering the canopy a bit as we floated down towards the airport. My ears were really blocked and were bothering me but other than that it felt really great! I wanted to ask him more questions about knowing when to turn and the upwind and downwind stuff etc but because of the trouble I was having hearing I just let it go and decided to just enjoy it. Soon it was time to land and we landed right in the center of the small circle of sand where we were suppose to. It was a very gentle landing exactly where we were suppose to! Bobby wanted to know if he could get some credit for it for the accuracy contest they were having!
My sisters were there to meet us and were taking some pictures I think. If they send me any I'll post them. We boarded the bus and headed back across the airport to the office. My ears were still really blocked and it felt like I was listening to everyone from underwater. When I talked though it sounded really loud and kind of echoed through my head. I sat next to this sweet older gentlemen who was asking me how I liked it. I told him it was incredible and that he should try it. He said he was 78 and had had triple-by-pass surgery but that he'd always wanted to do it. I told him he should give it a try anyway... then... "What have you got to lose?" crossed my mind but I didn't dare add that! I meant it in a nice way but he may have took it wrong! He was so nice. He even took my picture after we got off the bus. I hope he gives it a whirl some day!
My ears continued to stay blocked for the rest of the day. It was really uncomfortable and was driving me crazy! That night they popped a bit and it was a little better but it was still uncomfortable. I guess I must have had a slight head cold and changing altitudes so fast like that must have bothered my ears. It's now a week later and I still find myself swallowing hoping to get them totally unblocked but they are pretty much back to normal. Afterwards I read that you shouldn't jump with a head cold for that very reason but I still think I'd do it all over again. It was worth it!
Well that's the story of what I assume is my last tandem jump. Hopefully I'll have the courage to sign up for the AFF classes when they start in a month or so up here!! As soon as I jump you know I'll be back here writing about it!!
Oh... I should tell you about my trip to Sky Ventures indoor wind tunnel in Orlando the next night. I went there hoping to feel more comfortable during my AFF free falls. One fear I had was getting turned over on my back and not being able to get over again though everyone assured me all I had to do was arch hard. When we first got there I saw a group of people trying it and most of them looked like they were having a hard time. I imagined it would be easy to do. After my group got suited up and got our instructions we got to watch a group of real skydivers practicing in there. They made it look easy. They were doing turns and flips and practicing formations. It looked really fun and I was excited to try.
When it was our groups turn I was fourth in line. The guy in line behind me had 300 skydives. Everyone else hadn't skydived before but a few had done the wind tunnel before. The 3 people before me didn't do all that great. I thought I'd do really good having had some experience. WRONG!!! lol I did do better than them and did manage to get quite a ways up a few times but I'd seem to go into this left spin that I couldn't stop even though I felt I was symmetrical. You only get to go for like 2 minutes. (I had imagined the wind tunnel being much bigger and getting to be in there for a lot longer). The guy after me did pretty good. You could tell he knew what he was doing. One or two of the others didn't do too bad either.
I was excited to try it again the second time. (You get 2 turns). I thought I'd be more relaxed and do much better. But when my turn came again I had a harder time than before! I just couldn't seem to keep stable. I was really mad at myself. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and it made me nervous to think if it was this hard in a wind tunnel, what would it be like at 13,000 ft???? Afterwards the instructor told me she thought I had my arms back too much but she had no idea why I went into the spins the first time. So forget trying turns or flipping upsidedown in there... I couldn't even manage to "fly" stable! I was very disappointed. I really wanted to stay and try it some more but my sisters were waiting and the skydivers had it rented again for the next half hour so it would have been a while. We kind of had plans the next night and then Monday morning I was headed home so I didn't get to try it some more. Too bad they didn't have one near me. I think it would be wonderful to practice in there until you felt comfortable. I'm sure there are differences than freefalling for real but I still think it is a great opportunity to learn. When you think that for each skydive you do you only get one minute at the most for practicing freefall techniques, just think how much spending a half hour or so in the tunnel could help! Oh well. Anyway next year my family is going to Daytona Beach on vacation and my kids are dying to try that so I will take them over there and we will see if I am much better after HOPEFULLY having gone thru AFF!