For my 64th birthday I wanted to give myself a lalapalooza present. So, I decided to go skydiving.
I picked a place north of here and went out on a Tuesday morning. We arrived early, before the pilots and the divers and waited in a tin pavilion for everyone to arrive.
Waiting to jump
The weird thing was, I didn’t feel a bit nervous. I talked with a 20-something Swedish teacher who said she had bungee jumped at 16 with no fear and now she was scared of today’s jump. I told her that fear of this kind of daredevil exploit peaks at about 50 and then starts going in the opposite direction so by the time you’re my age it’s a little like being 16 again.
Harnessing up
This is called “Tandem Jumping” because you jump harnessed to an experience skydiver. My partner was Riener.
Riener and me
When everyone was harnessed up, we climbed (3 sets of jumpers) into a little prop plane that would take us up to 5000 feet. The views extended from Cape Point all the way up the west coast including Cape Town and Table Mountain. Such a great way to see the ground we have covered in this three months.
Practicing
We (My co-jumpers were two Israelis.) were sandwiched in the belly of the plane. When we reached 5000 feet, we tumbled pair by pair out the open door of the plane.
Diving
The free fall is 35 seconds, then the chute opens. The wind is loud when you are in free fall. But, when the chute opens, it is silent as you float down to earth.
Riener showed me some tricks like “the roller coaster” where I pulled on one parachute strap and we spiraled in a corkscrew down…down…down.
Flying through the air is stupendous fun.
A soft landing
The landing was in sand and we landed standing up, so much more gentle than I had imagined.
I did it! And I felt pretty darned good.
MedFlies 