Sunday 2nd October
After seeing the crappy weather forecast we decided to go down on Saturday afternoon for a change. Having invested in a ground mat and brought an extra blanket (on top of sleeping bag and duvet) - I was fairly confident i could keep the cold out.
Timmy was on level 6 and me back to level 4 after the previous errors at level 5 (video now uploaded so check it out). I was first up on the manifest on the Sunday and feeling shoddy - don't think i really wanted to do it.
Got in the plane and again I really didn't want to do it - the aim was just to do a left and a right 90o turn. Simple. Plane ride was horrible thinking about the instructor assisted pull, previous; I was wearing a weighted body warmer thingy - which made for an extra uncomfortable ride. 10k - door open, nerves gone and away we went. My usual crappy exit happened; arch went well and got stable fairly quickly - got 3 turns in and felt pretty good. I was aware my legs were still a bit crappy but other than that all good.
Canopy ride was sweet, although I puked the morning’s egg sarnie into my mouth - grim, and i was again a happy and enthused bunny. Level passed and onto 5 (again).
Tims level 6 went really well so he was onto 7 - his final jump - although he did loose his ripcord again - haha!
After taking a few minutes to let my stomach settle (about 30) I got manifested again. This time I was jumping with Peter - the instructor from my first few jumps. We went through the routing - 360 left and 360 right - cool.
I was happy in the plane, enjoyed the ride up - I was sitting right beside Timmy for the first time and we managed not to say 2 words to each other the whole trip but got a bit of a high-5 in so all good. Few deep breaths, 10k - door opened, check in, prop, up, down, arch and away we went - lovely. Got stable - took a couple of signals and did my turns - they went really well and i felt in total control - bonus. Gave peter big thumbs up - and go a tidy smile back. Locked on at 6 and pulled at 5.5 for some reason. All good - although it made for a longer canopy ride down by which time my fingers had fully frozen.
I am clearly a bit heavier than Tim as we landed within 5 seconds and 30 feet of each other, which was cool - also got to shout at each other on the canopy ride. yay. We duly got told not to do that again as we were a bit close ... oops.
Level 5 debrief went well and Peter was happy to move me onto level 6.
Although tired I wanted to get one more jump in when it was going so well. The aim of the jump was to do my first solo exit. Eek. No instructors holding on - to get stable and then to do some tracking.
Plane ride was good - slightly nervous of the new exit but happy enough that it didn't really make any difference. 10k, check in, prop, up, down, arch, de-arch, tumble on me back, weee, look at sky no ground, check alti, arch, un-tumble, look at ground, enter slow spin, give wrong input to correct, alti, think about it, stop spin. sweet alti - 6k feet - oops took a while, Peter was smiling at me (and i was laughing at the state of his cheeks around his eye sockets). Got the signal to do the track, pulled my arms back, straightened my legs and did the track - cool - felt great, alti, wave, wave, arch reach pull. Canopy all good - scream a bit with joy. Enjoyed the canopy ride down
and was just so happy that i fixed the things that were going wrong. Sorted.
Okay my exit was crap - but hey i could not have cared less.
Peter was very happy on the ground - debreif went well and I passed - result.
It would have been nice to have gone on and done another jump and tried to complete the course on the same day as tim, but I was thrilled with the 3 successes of the day for me so called it a day. Driving home the pair of us gibbered contentedly for 3hrs.
Once home, we checked into our local and a few welcome Guinness tidied off an essentially perfect Sunday.
Videos will be uploaded today/tomorrow.
|
