Skydiving

Happy Birthday to Sean. He has made it to his 21st birthday. Congratulations also to Brigitte, for having survived jumping out of a plane contrary to her expectations.

Before I describe how the day went, I'd like to share an excellent dinner party idea with you... consider this my "Good Things" segment. I was at the liquor store yesterday. As I walked by the Californian wine section, I noticed a loud bottle of wine that in large all caps, announced itself as "THE KING" cabernet sauvignon. Above the letters was a picture of Elvis dressed in a rhinestone covered white jumpsuit, frozen in a sweaty drop knee turn. I have not tasted this wine... but I figure it would be good wine for a dinner party, at which the music played shall be a collection of opera arias performed by Michael Bolton (yes, this is out there in the world, the album is called "My Secret Passion" (very aptly named, but unfortunately, not kept secret as it should have been), it has all the standards: e lucevan le stelle, che gelida manina, una furtiva lagrima, and even nessun dorma... check it out before the party but make sure you're equiped to clean the blood out of your ear canals)... as for food to serve... does it really matter? With the winning combo of "THE KING" and "My Secret Passion"... you don't need food.

But back to the skydiving. Brigitte and I got up at 5:45 and drove to Sean's place in Ukee, whence he drove us all the way to Campbell River, where I felt compelled to remark "Hey! This looks just like Surrey" so many times that Brigitte offered to bash in my head. She's generally not a violent person... but at the time-- I was to later discover-- she had all sorts of thoughts going through her head, including the urgent need to write and post her last words of love and wisdom to her nephews in New Zealand, whom, she did not believe, she would see again after falling to her death due to multiple parachute failures. She was later to confess that she was certain something terrible would happen, that at least one of the three of us was going to die, or get seriously and permanently injured, or, at the very least, break an ankle or dislocate something. I cannot know what Sean's state of mind was at the time, but he was completely unfazed by the suggestion that he may not live to see his 21st birthday, which is today. He didn't seem at all nervous, and he and I talked about the possibility of watching skydiving accidents on youtube while we waited for the class to start as a way of creating anxiety. I was thinking that this skydiving thing had better be scarier than bungee jumping. It is reasonable to believe that if a 150 foot jump off a bridge isn't scary, a 3,500 foot jump out of an airplane might be.

The instruction began at 11AM, and started off with a rather drawn out explanation of the waiver, which consisted of 4 pages, each of which had to be filled out, initialed, signed, &c. There was then an overview of the equipment and aircraft, and several hours of instructions on what to do to exit the aircraft, what to do to ensure that your parachute is operable, what to do if it isn't, how to fly a parachute, and how to land one. We were doing solo jumps, so aside from instructions over radio, we were on our own as soon as we're out of the plane. The plan is to, once we get to the appropriate altitude and on a cue of "get ready" from the jump-master who will throw out your guide chute, step out of the plane and hang off the strut under the wing with both hands, and then, on the cue of "go," to look up, let go, lock into the arch position, count out loud (arch thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, check canopy)... then look up, check to see if your parachute is deployed, check for tangled lines, kick out of tangles, pump the steering toggles twice, check steering, fly for a while, and then land under direction given over the radio. If any of a number of problems occurred during this process, there was also plan B-- the procedure for releasing the main chute from your harness and deploying the spare chute.

We practiced the whole process numerous times, and even practiced plan B once. I was totally stoked the entire time, and but became a little worried as time went by, because it looked like the clouds were moving in, which, if they had, would mean we don't get to jump, and I really really wanted to jump and not wait for another day.

Once the instructions were over, Brigitte wondered why they don't do tandem jumps. Sean and I informed her that they did... but neither he nor I were very interested in having a guy on our back while skydiving... so we opted for the lesson. She wasn't part of the decision making because while Sean and I had discussed skydiving for a few weeks, she found out about it the day before yesterday.

A little after 3PM, they pushed the plane out of the hangar, and we put on our brown jumpsuits (jumpsuits! for jumping!)... put on helmets... Sean and I had our hiking boots duct taped so that the hooks wouldn't have a chance to catch on the lines... they got us in our parachute harnesses, put a one-way radio on us, checked everything twice. We decided our jump order (me, Brigitte, Sean) and headed to the plane. The plane felt really small during our practice, but when we got in it with our packs on, plus the pilot and the jump-master, the plane felt really really small. Kneeling with the harness on and with five people inside a little tiny plane made my feet go numb. I tried as best as I could to wiggle around so as not to get crampy... but ouch... that hurt. When we got to jump altitude, the pilot opened the door. The wind and noise was a bit of a surprise. On the cue of get ready, I stuck my right foot out as practiced, only to experience the wind resistence that was earlier discussed (I had mentally prepared for this, and also mentally prepared for the possibility that I may not be able to hang on in the wind, much like I wasn't able to hang on to the rope when I was trying to surf the rapids of the St Lawrence by Habitat 67). I "determinedly" (as was instructed) climbed out, hung on the strut, and, on the cue of "go," looked up, let go, and flew away from the plane. I started my count probably one second later than instructed (it takes just that long to realize that I have in fact let go)... "arch thousand,two thousand, three thousand" and wondered why I was spinning so much (we didn't discuss spinning)... "four thousand," WHOMP!.. the chute opened... and I continued... "five thousand, check canopy." I looked up... and there was the parachute, fully opened, but with the lines twisted in a chunk about a foot long. I kicked out of my line twists (probably four or five twists), pumped my steering toggles, checked my steering, and the radio guy says "turn right if you can hear me"... and I turned right... "turn left if you can hear me"... and I turned left... "you look fine where you are, so just fly a while. enjoy the view." Hmm... yes... flying... and yes, view. "and if you're feeling particularly athletic, do a 360." I started my spin "but just do one though, just one 360".... and I did it hard enough that I spun out with the speed; this reminded me of the carnival ride with the swing seats on the carousel that rises and then spins the seats out... that's a good feeling. I flew for another while... and then was directed to the landing area. I was to land in the direction of an orange arrow placed on the ground, I was to look at the ground at around 100 ft, get ready for landing, and then at 20 ft, brake the chute while looking forward (we were told not to look at the ground, because we would be going about 20miles per hour, and the ground would look like it's jumping up at us and that might make us forget to do what we're supposed to do). "aim directly for us"... so I aimed for the gap between the radio guy and the pilot's brother. I braked as instructed and landed, and was pulled forward by the chute and dragged for a couple of feet. Then I got up, and the pilot's brother helped me gather my chute, and I turned around and watched Brigitte and Sean in the air. Brigitte landed about 80 ft away and ended up seated in a watery ditch. Sean landed on his feet about 2 ft away from her and on the ditch bank. If there was anything attractive about that ditch, I did not perceive it when I was in the air.

We walked back to the hangar. I cannot know for certain how they felt, but I imagine that Brigitte got the most out of the jump. I don't know how impressed Sean was by the whole thing, but Brigitte appeared as if she has just had this great big wonderful exhilarating experience. They apparently both felt such a rush that they had forgotten to count...

Unlike my friends, I had told my mother I was going skydiving, so when we were in the hangar, I called her to let her know that I was done (we had intended to do two jumps, but there was not enough daylight for the second). "So, how was it?" my mother asked... "It was okay," I replied, and then felt immediately guilty for being so unmoved by the experience in this hangar full of stoke expectant people, the pilot, the jumpmaster, the radio guy, the pilot's brother, &c.

I've come up with a few theories to explain to myself why I experience things so differently than would be expected... but I will save that for the next post... right now I'm going out for Sean's birthday dinner.