Hey you, up in the sky, learning to fly, tell me how high!
13th July 2006
The clue here is in the title!
Yep …..we both freefalled from 12,000ft and have the DVD to prove it…..Flickr has the photos and would recommend you check them out before reading this blog.
We booked the tandem freefall and skydive immediately on our arrival in Taupo (on Wednesday) which is the cheapest place in NZ to book a skydive. We figured once we booked on and handed the money over there would be little excuse to chicken out. Well, on booking they don’t actually take any money because the weather has been so bad they can guarantee when they will be able to jump. We later learnt that in the last two weeks they have only been able to jump on two days so we were extremely fortunate to get to jump so quickly.
We turned up at 10am Thursday morning as instructed only to learn , as we had already suspected, that it was to cloudy to jump. So we booked in 2pm and spent the rest of the day studying the sky and telling each other that there would be no shame in backing out (yeah right!). After many jokes about being scraped of the tarmac we rolled up at 2pm to be told that we could jump.
We waited for earlier groups to jump and were finally called up only to be told that the weather was deteriorating and that they would get us ready but is was only a 50:50 chance we would get to jump.
When I say they got us ready…all I mean is that we got dressed in the proper equipment ….. we had no briefing …it was literally meet the guy whose hands we were putting our lives in and get in the plane.
The Maori gods were watching over us as we were told we could go! The ascent to 12,000ft took approximately 15mins during which the trained skydivers continously joked about death and betting who could open their chutes at the lowest altitude.
At 9,000ft we were attatched to our instructors. At 11,000ft the goggles went on. At 12,000ft the hatch opened…..the first jumper was rolled out the plane …..it was then my turn (Charlotte). The camera man exited the plane and held on to the outside whilst I positioned myself on the edge of the plane…and placed my head back on to my instructors shoulder as I had been told only moments before. The next thing I knew I was face down looking at clouds. The exit from the plane is the quickest part (Chris and I later agreed that this was the only time we felt like we were actually falling). After the first few initial seconds the freefall felt controlled and I can honestly say I never felt scared (I think this was due to being tightly strapped to the instructor).
I am unable now to put the freefall into words……fortunately the camera man was directly in front (and later underneath) of us both capturing the whole thing on video so you will be able to see my instinctive choice of words at that very moment (the extra money for a cameraman to jump with us has been agreed as money well spent!).
Jumping from 12,000ft allows 45 seconds of freefalling.
At 4,000ft the parachute opened with a jolt. The parachute ride lasted approximately 5 minutes …which after the first minute of shouting and screaming about the freefall being amazing and declarations of returning tomorrow allowed 4 minutes of taking in the amazing views…the sun shining on lake Taupo (the biggest lake in New Zealand), the snow capped mountains in the distance and the green fields surrounding the town of Taupo.
During the parachute fall the goggles were removed (fortunately no snot had appeared as we had been warned could do!) and the instructor completed a series of turns to bring us to a landing right next to the cameraman on the ground.
When I had jumped I waited for the next few people to follow and could not see any sight of Chris…..now I would be lying if I said I did not wonder if he had chickened out …..but deep down I knew that there was no way Chris would not have jumped having seen me go first.
I later learnt that Chris had been moved to sit on the edge of the plane and was ready to jump only to be told by his instructor that they couldn’t jump…..due to the visibility. It is a personal choice for the instructor whether the conditions are right….Chris had to sit by whilst two other people jumped. All the time his instructor saying that it did not look good and Chris thinking he would never hear the end of it from me!
Fortunately the plane turned around and found a hole in the clouds for Chris to jump….so Chris got to experience sitting on the edge twice and I got to see him land.
The buzz from the jump was absolutely fantastic….
….bring on the next jump!
Tags: New Zealand, NZ, skydive, Taupo
Chris and Charl
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