When my friend Adam asked me if I wanted to write for Skydive Addiction, I was thrilled!
Writing has always been an important part of my life. I have been writing stories, journals, poems and all sorts of texts in both French and English ever since I have known how to write.
As for skydiving… it entered my life almost two years ago now… and it literally changed it. Skydiving quickly became a passion, something I have been thinking about EVERY SINGLE DAY ever since the idea of doing it entered my mind. Am I skydive-addicted? Oh yeah! I truly believe skydiving is a beautiful drug and I really don’t see how I’ll ever get enough of it!
I’ve been writing a lot for myself about skydiving ever since I started and I do have quite a few stories to share with you. But today I will tell you about my most recent one: my 100th jump, which was quite a memorable moment!
As we were heading to Gananoque, in Ontario for the opening weekend of this awesome drop zone last Friday, I knew that with 97 jumps in my log book I had pretty good chances of hitting my 100th jump. And I was actually quite happy to be doing it there. Gananoque is where I did my first big ways and I knew that no matter what, we were going to have a blast!
We were actually quite a bunch of highly motivated skydivers meeting in Gan for the opening weekend, mostly French people from Quebec, since most of the DZs in Quebec open a month later.
After my second jump of the day (my 99th), I started collecting names of people who wanted to be part of my 100th.
“What are we doing?”
“I have no idea, just figuring out who wants to be part of it for now, and then we’ll see!”
When I realized almost everybody I asked said yes (or definitely!), I thought it might be a good idea to start writing down names. And… that’s when I found out there was a problem: 19 jumpers won’t fit in a King Air, which can nevertheless accommodate 15 people and go up to 13 500 ft in 12 minutes.
“We could load the Cessna and make it go up half an hour earlier to meet the King Air”… that was one of the silly solutions that were suggested.
OK, so we may not have been able to fit in all the people I would have loved to see as part of my 100th, but we did get quite an organization for it. Will McCarthy did a fantastic job in organizing a 3 point 15-way, keeping in mind that this special jump had to be a successful and safe one.
I have to say, I did feel quite special with all those people excited about jumping with me. Okay, they were excited about jumping in a big way, no matter for what reason. But I did let myself believe this was MY moment.
There was exhilaration in the plane all the way up. Yellow light went on and my heart was racing. As I climbed out the plane and held on to my friend Ge, who was to be part of the base with me, I did not care for one second about the fact that it was so chilly up there. I gave my count to key the exit and we were off. The exit was not quite stable, but we did manage to recuperate quite nicely. The clouds were magnificent, although I only noticed them when I watched a video of the jump later on, as I was so concentrated in staying stable and doing my best to make things right. I did manage to look around and figure out that most of the jumpers did make it, and I enjoyed seeing all the smiling faces around me.
We did in fact end up with a one point 13-way, which is actually impressive, considering it was one of the first jumps of the season for most of us.
When I opened my parachute, I felt like I always do at that very moment: exactly where I belong.
I did manage to have a pretty good landing, and I was really proud of myself! As I was packing, later on, Tom, the owner of the place, came to me and said “You know that now that you’ve made it to 100 jumps, you’re a sky-goddess.”
Hum.. that really felt good to hear. But I wouldn’t say that. In my head, and when I look at the other people I see flying, I still feel like a baby, with so much left to learn! Okay, maybe I turned into a toddler last weekend!
And well… of course, at the end of the day… Adam and some other “friends” made sure I was pied to celebrate this new milestone in a creamy and cold way!
Adam… your turn will come soon enough!
Blue skies!
Lucie in the sky!