For as long as I can
remember I have always talked up the prospect of me doing a sky dive. Miss Alex
from the word go has always said she wants to do a sky dive. I Stupidly thought
the day would never ever come when I would have to do the most unnatural thing
and fling my body out of a plane 14,000 feet above earth. Then miss Alex and I
both go travelling and it comes into our conversation more and more. Until we
hit Australia and then miss Alex even enquires about prices. At this point I
was still stupidly thinking the faze would pass. On the outside I was still
talking positive about it, inside I was dreading it. Miss Alex is the also girl
who bottled out of getting a tattoo last minute, so how would she be able to
handle a sky dive!!! Miss Alex has done a sky dive before, as she gets older
miss Alex will tell any one that she becomes more “wimpy” I honestly didn’t
think she’d be up for it again. I found myself making excuses like “I need to
transfer the money over from my bank to pay for it, we’ll book it later” or
“lets book it tomorrow I’m hungry now, lets go for tea” Eventually I’d ran out
of excuses and it was time to book it
The night before the
jump could have lasted for eternity and I’d have been happy. Miss Alex was very
confident she’d be fine, she wasn’t expecting any nerves as she’d done it
before, Miss Alex sensed my nerves and was telling Lucy and the others that she was looking
forward soooo much to seeing me attempt to jump out of the plane, she was
telling Lucy and the girls that she couldn’t wait to watch my video. That night I stayed up as late as
possible to delay the inevitable. Miss Alex however wanted an early night. I
went to a bar til the early hours to watch a football match that I had no
interest in. I needed something to take my mind off it. When I eventually got
to bed the pair of us couldn’t sleep. This was another one of those “worst
nights sleep” that miss Alex has.
We had a decent
breakfast and then waited for the bus to pick us up and take us to the airfield.
The drive was about an hour. During the bus ride we had disclaimer forms to
fill in. This bus ride was my turning point for some strange reason. I felt
more and more ok about the sky dive and I just wanted to make sure I enjoyed
it. I convinced myself that it was all going to be ok. A DVD of Sky Dives was also
played on a small TV on the bus and surprisingly this really relaxed me a lot.
I was looking at the expressions on the faces of the people and they looked
like they loved it, so this helped settle me. For the first time I was looking
forward to it. Miss Alex giving my a little squeeze of the hand every now and
then. I sensed the tides were being turned and as I was starting to enjoy it
she was slightly going the opposite direction.
Once we arrived at the
location we were briefed and told instructions on what to do before the jump,
during the jump and after. The plane would be making 3 trips with jumpers. We
were on the 2nd. About 15 minutes after the plane took off with the
first load of divers, we could hear the planes engines in the distance in the
sky. The thick cloud cover kept it hidden from view but we knew this meant that
anytime soon we’d see the parachutes burst through the clouds. When they did
appear it was a matter of minutes before they landed on the ground. The plane
just about beating them back to the airfield.
This is it, our moment
was here. Miss Alex’s and my name was called out to put the harness on. This is
the moment the cameras started to roll. I can honestly say I was a little
nervous at this point but the nerves were definitely out weighed by my
excitement of what we were about to do, together. Miss Alex being camera shy giggled nervously on the camera.
Harnesses on we were told to make our way over to the plane. As it was my
instructor was first on, I had to follow him. This meant we’d be last to jump
from the plane. Miss Alex and her instructor were next. So miss Alex would be
jumping right before me. I could sense she was nervous now asking the
instructor how many points would she be attached to him at. The answer is 4
points, 2 at shoulder height and 2 at waist height. “Is this enough?” she’d
ask.
The plane is taking
off and there is 8 people on board. The conversation is lacking, not sure
whether this is because of the noisy engines or people genuinely are scared. At
this point I was ok with the thought of a sky dive, in fact this was the best
I’d felt about it since I passingly mentioned to miss Alex 18 months ago that
I’d do a sky dive. As the plane was going through the clouds the instructor
showed me his Altimeter, it read 6,000 feet, so we were roughly half way up. The
clouds cover was so vast that it almost looked as if we were in the Antarctic.
The clouds fluffy and pure white. 12,000 feet and my instructor tapped me on my
shoulder an shouted 2 minutes!! He then clipped me to him, at all 4 points!! I
double checked, looking over my shoulder as he did this. All of a sudden the plane
door swings open and the first jumper dives straight out as though he was
diving into a deep swimming pool. This was it no turning back now, one by one
divers were jumping out the plane at about 10 second intervals.
After the night before
miss Alex saying she was going to laugh at me squirm jumping out the plane, I
did raise a little smile, which is caught on her video, as she begged her
instructor to check if she was properly attached to him. Then in a quick flash
she was gone. As I write this now it makes me Laugh Out Loud, having seen her
video and me being totally oblivious to her mid air Les Dawson face impressions
and mid air dance moves, this is the moment I’m preparing myself to jump out of
a plane and I don’t have a clue what she is going through at this point. (air
aerobics) If I’m honest, once she left the plane she didn’t enter my mind again
until we passed parachutes. I’m sat on the door entrance and it’s freezing cold
and really hard to breath, just as I’m thinking this WOOSH!! We were gone and
free from the plane. In the roll I caught a last glance of the plane leaving us
and within seconds we were in the freefall position. It was an amazing sight,
but the noise was so loud with the wind rushing past our ears as we were
heading towards the ground at a rate of 200mph. I remember thinking that if it
was to go terribly wrong from here, then I didn’t have a care in the world, the
sight was so beautiful that if the parachute failed then I didn’t care. The
clouds were slowly creeping up on us and then all of a sudden I felt a great
big pull and the noise level instantly fell to deafening silence. The parachute
had opened. Bonus!!! As we went through the clouds we were hit with dampness
moist and a freezing chill. Then the ground appeared below us, My instructor
asked me how miss Alex would have been and I told him she’d have loved it, once
again as I write this, her video enters my mind, and I’m laughing out loud
again. He then pointed out there parachute and we each did a fly by past each
other. I waved at her. It must have taken about 5 minutes from here to land.
Once on the ground the adrenalin is still pumping through the body. I was
absolutely buzzing and miss Alex approached me and told me not to tell anybody
at the sky dive centre that she had already done a skydive, “why” I asked,
“because I don’t think the video went too well”
I would just like to
say how proud I am that we both did this together. Miss Alex’s video is an all
time classic and we will be watching it for years to come. My instructor said
to me as we landed “so would you do it again?” I replied “Definitely!!” or am I
just confident the opportunity will never arise again
Speak soon xxx