Jump:
100 |
Date: 4/3/00 |
Altitude: 13500 ft |
Empiru Brava/Porter |
| Well,
I saw Ian landing. Nice large field - just a
bit far from the DZ. Sunset load. His 100th jump. I laughed!
The jump sounded most entertaining. They dressed each other on
the way to altitude. A spectacular funnel! Vincent, the
photographer, had to do head down to keep up. Will lost his
"Time Out" altimeter in the fracas. Loads of fun.
Ian couldn't find the DZ on opening. He thought he'd found it
but hadn't. LoF but LoF equals Landed on Fence not Landed on
Feet! Landed fine but lost the fight exiting the field. No
barbed comments please! Had the rest of us in stitches (seven
of them!) Anyway, what a way to reach a century.
Ruth Cooper
D10495
|
|
Having jumped an Otter for my first 3 solo jumps
at Empiru Brava, we assumed we'd be able to do the same for the
"sunset load" for my 100th jump and I'd arranged to do a
"tube" with fellow holiday-makers Tim, Will and Nigel. While the
other guys went through their Cat 10 (Tim and Will) or skysurfing
(Nigel) training I kicked my heels for a bit and tried to chill out so
that we could all celebrate my 100th at the end of the day, hopefully with
a spectacular sunset behind us as I'd secured the services of Vincent, Babylon's
photographer, up with us to take some stills on this historic (hysteric?)
occasion. Christina and Terry were going to come along too for mutual
support (which I needed!) Yahoo!
| We dirt-dived a jump called "the
tube" but I was finding it all terribly confusing (so what's
new?!) and was worried about jumping with other people again after
such a long break. Tim advised that I wouldn't have to do
anything, "Just remember, all you have to do is hang on".
Well THAT sounded easy enough! However, we found out that the chances
of getting to jump the Otter were slim and we were more likely to be
jumping the smaller Porter. This resulted in a sudden change of
plan. Ruth, who was taking a day's rest from skydiving, suggested a "Horny
Gorilla" might be more fun. |
 |
 |
Although none of us were quite sure
what that was Vincent the photographer was happy to explain it.
Basically we just had to get out the plane in formation and then
kick our legs up into the middle of the ring. Sounded easy
enough, right? The ride to altitude was very butterfly-inducing
for me. All this talk of spinning and speeds we might reach
sounded a bit worrying. The plane was very cramped after the
Otter and made worse by two of our party (no names) deciding
they suddenly needed to start putting their booties on. Trying
to pry legs out of cramped spaces where there wasn't room was
entertaining to say the least. Tim had the worst of it by the
door but somehow managed to sort us all out. |
| The original plan was for "floaty-lite"
Will, Tim and I to exit linked up with Nigel diving out after us
to join up. Of course we funnelled. Badly! And I think that
although Tim kept saying it had been his fault Vincent's photo
pinpoints the real culprit (oh dear! those legs aren't where
they should be!) It was at this stage I remembered the original
instruction I'd been given "You don't have to do anything
but hold on". Shame it was meant for another jump! I held
on as we span and bumped and grinded, grinning at the way the
horizon seemed to keep changing its orientation. The
"feeling sick" sensation I'd been worried about wasn't
there at all - this was a ball and a half. |
 |
 |
It was only some seconds after
Tim shook off my grip ("Hah! Wimp!" I thought,
in my naive stupidity) that I looked at Will, who seemed
less than delirious with happiness at my "death
grip" hold on his chest strap. In fact, I suddenly
realised, he looked positively unhappy about the
situation. Eventually a message got through to even my
addled brain: "I think he wants you to let go!".
I did and got stable, thinking what fun things had been
and that I still had a few seconds left before
"pull" time. |
|
| Suddenly I seemed to be all on
my own. Nigel had clearly been sensible in keeping well
away from the funnelling farce but surely one of the
others was man enough to try and share some sort of sky
space with me? Apparently not, I thought as I checked the
alti, which showed we were at about 7000 feet as I recall.
Oh well, time to relax perhaps. Given the photographic
evidence, checking my extremely crap body position might
have been a more appropriate action to take at this time!
Oh well! And then, as if from nowhere, Tim appeared and
gave me a big grin (actually I think he was laughing at my
body position but he's far too polite a chap to confirm
this). |
 |
|
 |
We faced off and Tim wanted to
do at least a couple of points to rescue the shambles that
had precluded our meeting up. I was having none of it and
stayed where I was grinning the grin of the inane. I
suddenly noticed Vincent was just ahead of me. He made a
signal which I think was "legs out" (I reckon I
was probably back-sliding like hell) but he seemed to
be the same sort of distance from me after I put my legs out.
Whatever, he must have good reactions and could well have been taken
by surprise by my sudden forward movement! I decided to
stick my
tongue out at him (below left) |
 |
|
| All too soon the jump was over and
it was time to pull. I made a mess of my track away, which lost
me time when I was already pulling lower than I had been on solo
jumps and had a nice soft opening. It was at this stage I looked
around and realised that the DZ was not where I expected it to
be. |
 |
I
could see the bay. I could see lots of houses. But right
where the DZ should be were just a few fields. In the
distance I could see a building with a corrugated roof.
Could those be the packing sheds? Was that road running
alongside it actually the runway? And why couldn't I see
any other canopies in the air? Doh! By the time I'd
realised that the building I was headed towards was NOT
the packing shed it was too late to think about landing
somewhere else. There were two fields below me. One was
brown and the other was green with children's amusement
rides at one end of it. I opted for the green field as
that indicated grass (not tall painful crops) and the
rides indicated people (or so I hoped). Of course I got it
wrong. The brown field was short dried out grass and no
bordering fence. The green field had an 8 foot fence,
topped with barbed wire around it. My landing was fine,
but it was getting dark and I needed to get out of the
field. Empiru Brava got a pickup van out to me really
quickly and I'd found some wooden pallettes to help me
scale the fence. It was only when I was inside the van
that I realised my hand was bleeding rather badly and to
this day I still don't know if it was a nail in one of the
palettes or some barbed wire that caused the gash that
required 7 stitches in it (Thank God for Spanish hospitals
and the E111 form which lets us Brits get free treatment).
All-in-all a jump I shall certainly remember for years to
come, which after all is what 100th jumps are supposed to
be all about! |
 |
|
|
|
