So this past Saturday was opening day for most of the drop zones in the area. It was a fairly cloudy day with clouds at 7500-9500 feet. But that’s not something that’ll stop us from jumping out of a fairly good aeroplane, that I can say for certain.
So I was waiting in the Manifest as the first load took off and hopped on the 2nd load for a fun jump.
Injured myself on that run… My left index finger got a scrape… (Bet you all thought that it was something way worse haha). The landing strip for the plane is simply a patch of grass, on my 1st run I landed on it as the plane was coming in, I had to run out of the way canape in hand haha.
The next load I was on, I was the only fun jumper and was accompanied by 4 tandems who came for someone’s birthday… We sang him happy birthday on the plane as his girlfriend shivvered in fear and held onto her friend’s hand for dear life… So we made fun of her and everyone held hands with the person in front of them… We were 9 people holding hands on the plane making whiny noises and laughing at her…
I hopped out first, did a frontflip and got a great run in.
At the bottom, the girl who was shaking seemed to have enjoyed it more than anyone else… I doubt that they’ll be doing this again though.
Come time for my 3rd jump, my buddy who’s also an instructor at the DZ decided that we should do a few of my required jumps for my A license, so we planned it out and hopped on the plane for a run. It went well, it was basically just forward movement practice.
At this point, I was starting to feel hungry… I then realized that it was already 1 pm and hadn’t eaten a thing all day… (I woke up early, wasn’t hungry, drove to the DZ, the restaurant wasn’t open that day, so I just proceeded to start my jumps…)
Anyways, this was obviously a big mistake, but I only realized this once I was on the plane for my 4th jump…
Everything was fine until about 8000 feet… That’s when I started to feel nauseous.
My stomach was churning, the pressure changes had gotten to me and here I was, sitting in front of a cute chick who I had just met who was doing some fun jumps to get enough for her A license and sitting just across from my instructor buddy.
My stomach’s going nuts, finally I feel it… I’m about to burst, my buddy sees my face and jumps up onto the bench (we’re flying on a twin otter). He knows that look all too well..
I’m about to explode when we hit 13500 feet and the doors are opened.
The fresh air rushing into the plane instantly makes me feel a bit better.
We’re 2nd to hop off, so we get out the door, I’m praying I don’t puke right into my face
Countdown, 3, 2, 1, we jump, and instantly, I feel better.
we work on some 90 degree rotations (I’m rotating 90 degrees around him at a time)
I do 10 or so of them, then we just grab onto each other and spin each other around in circles.
I think I also figured out why I had been having some trouble with my landings.. I’m fairly on mark, but I’d usually hit the ground a bit rough, I think I finally figured out the sweet spot however I’ll only know once I test it out a few more times.
Hoping for good weather to get another few jumps in this coming weekend before I head to Jamaica.
See you in the clouds.
– Adam