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Published: December 7th 2008
Well, what can I say except 'OH MY GOD' what a day I have had. Kelly, Mel and I were picked up at 7:30am by Wayne (our pilot), Gary and Mark (sky diving guys). Our first stop was Livingstone Airport where we signed our lives away before heading out to a small hangar near an airstrip where our plane was.
Our plane was a Cessna 260 and was so small. I got stupidly excited at the thought of flying in such a small plane (for those of you that don't know - I love flying) but it did mean that only two of us could go up at once. That meant that we had to draw straws for who would be the unlucky one to go up first by themselves. Kelly drew the short straw and as she was strapped up and taking off into the air it all became very real.
As Kelly made her ascent Mel and I were kitted out in rather fetching red jumpsuits, harnesses and goggles. We were given instructions as to how we should position ourselves for the jump (head right back, hands holding onto straps and basically arch your back as much as possible). All sounds simple enough. As the plane cam overhead Mark told us we should actually be able to see them jump out and sure enough we did see a little black spec in the air, and then heard Kelly scream - ha ha. It only took another 5 minutes for her to get down and Mel and I were busy taking pictures of her landing for her. We all had a good laugh as her landing was quite rough (I wouldn't be laughing later).
As soon as Wayne came down in the plane in was our turn. We were walked through how we would need to climb out of the plane when we were told to and had a practice run. This was really hard and I even nearly fell off the plane when I tried on the ground but I was assured by Kelly that it was ten times easier when you were in the air and had someone strapped to the back of you for balance. I took her word for it and off we went in the plane.
I was sat, with Gary strapped to my back right next to the wide open side of the plane, not strapped in at all. Taking off and flying through the air next to the open side of a plane was so cool! The views were amazing and I was taking loads of pictures. We flew over Victoria Falls and around it a few times and could see the whole Zambezi Gorge from the air. We could even see the microlights and helicopters doing their scenic flights far below us. We were climbing to 10,000 feet and as soon as we got there it would be me who would jump out first. A few minutes before we got there I realised that I wasn't at all nervous and that in fact I was stupidly excited and said to Gary 'is it wrong that I actually want to jump out of this plane right now?'.
So the time came, my camera was strapped into the plane and we started shuffling (a very hard thing to do with a big guy strapped to your back). As I was climbing out of the plane onto the wheel I remember thinking that this was the most bizarre thing I had ever done. Then I kind of thought 'Oh shit', put my head back, arched my back, felt a shove and we were out!! I kept my eyes closed for the first second and then thought 'what the hell are you doing, open your eyes' just in time to see the bottom of the plane as we spun around. We got stable really quickly and then we had a 35 second free fall. The overwhelming impression I am still left with is being absolutely amazed at the force against you. My head was being forced back, I could feel the skin on my face and neck flapping away (the DVD is hilarious) and the view was stunning. 35 seconds went in a flash (later Garys computer showed we were doing 130mph in the free fall) and before I knew it I felt a huge yank as the parachute opened and everything on my harness tightened right up to the point where I thought it would cut off my circulation. Then there was silence. Total silence compared to the free fall. Gary asked me what I thought and I just kept saying 'absolutely amazing' and I am very proud of myself that I didn't swear! Ha ha. Gary then got my straps loosened so that I would be more comfortable (very scary having someone loosen straps that are holding you to them and the parachute whilst you are 1000's feet in the air). We did some spirals as we were coming down and Gary let me have a go at controlling the parachute which was so cool. Then when it was coming up to landing he said I had to get my legs up as high as I could so that my feet did not hit the ground when we came in.
Now, I am no expert when it comes to landing from a sky dive but even I thought we came in pretty hard and fast. I tried to get my legs up higher but my straps were still just too tight and I couldn't do it. So ... my feet hit the ground, then my knees, Gary ended up on top of me and I basically stopped us with my face!! It hurt. However, as the photos and DVD prove, I was still laughing my bum off and had a huge grin as I was high as a kite! I LOVED it.
For the rest of the day we got some breakfast and mooched around camp and basically couldn't stop talking about how great it was. Then the guys came by with the DVD's and we watched those and had a good laugh at each other (all of our landings were appalling).
Sky diving is quite simply the best thing I have ever done and I will definitely be doing it again at some point during my trip. I think second time around it would be even better as you would know more of what to expect. I want to jump out higher next time though. More free fall would be great!! Oh .... and I need to perfect my landing of course.
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Phil Wilson
non-member comment
Ouch
Well done Von it sounds absolutely fantastic, when the holiday is over you should get all your blogs together and arrange them into a diary or book with your photo's (yeah photo's? ) have a great xmas