Our Oasis leader had taken bookings some days before for Skydiving here in Swakopmund and to many people’s surprise, 23 out of 25 of us on the overland truck were signed up, even Vera and Malcolm! I wasn’t nervous, I knew I would be just before jumping out, but not now, I was really looking forward to it. It was one of my things to do on our travels anyway, I hadn’t imagined doing it in Namibia but heh, what the hell! Helen was also doing it which was great.
We got to the club to find a well organised skydive club. We were with Ground Rush Adventures in Swakopmund (http://www.skydiveswakop.com.na/) At the club we were told that they were short of instructors so we could only do it 2 at a time, so there may be a bit of a wait for some of us. This may or may not have suited us. Fortunately the sky dive club had a bar, so a couple, not many, of beers did the trick. The first few guys went up and 15 minutes later came back on such a high it was amazing just to watch. We all ran out onto the runway to see the first few come back, they were all grinning from ear to ear. A party atmosphere soon developed, with people either drinking excessively after their jump or slowly before the jump. We seemed to be quite a long way down the list; once Vera and Neil came back all smiles, this relaxed Helen. She saw how they had such a great time and weren’t at all scared that she seemed to lose some of her fear.
It was soon our turn and as we donned jumpsuits and met our instructors/tandem masters (I had Henrie and Helen had Eddie with Mathias jumping to video us) I began to get really excited. I’d wanted to skydive ever since seeing the film Pointbreak with Keanu Reeves. I wanted to feel the exhilaration of free fall, having your arms and legs out in a star shape just hurtling towards the earth at over 100mph! And the idea of "jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane" also appealed. They gave us some simple instructions which I have to say I probably wasn’t concentrating on – apparently there were 3 things before you jumped, head back, arms crossed until we clear of the plane and something else which escaped me. Helen seemed quiet but just that, not nervous at all, just quiet; although you never can tell. We crossed the runway in our tight jumpsuits, which just added to the whole experience – they were bright orange! We boarded our plane to discover that the pilot looked like a beach bum with flip flops, the plane was stuck together with sticky tape on the windows and the plane itself was just a Cessna with the back seats taken out! This wasn’t the time to start thinking about health and safety stuff like that, I had to concentrate on enjoying the adrenaline pumping round my body.
We got on the plane, all bundled together and in the right sequence so that we could jump together, bearing in mind that we had to strap two lots of people together during the flight. As we took off, the plane was really small and it reminded me of our flight to Zanzibar, although we weren’t about to “jump out of a perfectly good airplane” on that trip. I started to talk to Henrie, just to take my mind off what we were about to do. Henrie chatted back but Eddie (Helen’s tandem guy) was very quiet but that suited Helen, she just wanted to be in control of her own thoughts. The plane climbed and climbed and Henrie’s altimeter click over until we just approaching 10,000 feet. 2 minutes to go. Henrie and Eddie strapped us in so that they were behind us. Henrie gave a few last words of advice, this could have been anything really, I just wasn’t listening. I heard the bit about edging to the edge of the door and I would be dangling outside whilst he sat just inside the door. God! What am I doing? Am I completely insane? Helen looked really worried, but I tried to smile to her to comfort her but I think the look on my face, which wasn’t a smile apparently, just made her feel worse.
Then Mathias edged towards the door and opened it up like a roller door on a stationery cupboard. The noise was amazing s the wind whistled around the aircraft. He then stepped out onto the wing strut – this slightly panicked me but then no time to think about that as Henrie gestured for us to edge towards the door – what the hell was I doing? – a quick question to check that Henrie had actually strapped us together and before I knew I was dangling out of the plane whilst Henrie sat on the edge pointing to first Helen and the Mathias, he pulled my head back and then we were off! The initial sinking feeling you get as you launch yourself off anything (cliffs, planes, ropes, rollercoasters) lasted about 2 seconds and then, Oh my God, we were free falling! We did seem to be doing rather a lot of tumbling. This lasted for about 20 seconds or so.
Eventually Henrie sorted us out and we were actually free falling in the star position. I could see the whole skeleton coast, we were miles up, literally but there was no feeling of height at all. It was an amazing feeling, I was loving it. After about what seemed like only 2-3 seconds of free falling in the star position, Henrie gave the up signal to signify that the chute was going to be pulled and then we were floating down. Henrie gave me a go on the rip cords to control the shoot left and right and the speed of descent. This was also amazing. Before I knew it the ground started to approach us very quickly, we landed as smooth as anything. What a fabulous feeling, what a high. I instantly turned round to Henrie to hug him, right at that moment I loved him, I loved everyone, what an amazing experience. Fi came running up and hugged me, it was such a feeling of elation. Helen was soon down on the ground aswell, also on a high. We hugged each other. Helen was glad to be down on the ground, I would happily do it again right now!
In the Skydive club, we sank a couple of beers quite quickly whilst they prepared the video they’d just shot of us. 10 minutes and 2 beers later, they were showing our skydive. As I came out of the plane, I just tumbled for about 20 seconds, everyone just turned and looked at me, oh my God they were all saying. It hadn’t felt that bad up there but it looked really bad. Henrie came back from another jump and laughed and also said he wouldn’t go with me again! It turned out that the 3 simple things they’d told us about, well I’d only done 2 of them! I’d forgotten to put my legs under the fuselage which creates the dish shape necessary for hitting the freefall position as soon as we leave the aircraft! Ooops! I felt cheated that I hadn’t had my 30 seconds of freefall like others had, after all that’s what I wanted to do it for. We’d had a good time anyway and the evening continued with a very boozy affair and a traditional brai (barbecue with plenty of meat) which we all thoroughly enjoyed and can’t remember much about after midnight. What a brilliant day it had been.
Needless to say, I went back the next day and did it all again and properly this time. My tandem master was Eddie the second time, Henrie was apparently "busy" that day!
