Goodbye New Mexico

The DZ was really busy on Saturday, and the weather had turned to crap by the time my instructors were available. So I postponed my departure from NM by 24 hours so I could come back the following morning for my chance to jump. One of the other skydive students invited me to crash at his place, which saved me about 4 hours of driving. On Sunday I was able to get my C-1 jump done, but then I had to take off to finish packing and cleaning my apartment.

Jump #3: AFF Category C-1

I was EXTREMELY nervous for this jump... though I'm not really sure why. From 20 minutes before boarding the plane to when I climbed out on the strut, I was questioning whether or not I wanted to go through with it. I didn't get anywhere close to actually backing out, but I was very tense and had to close my eyes and focus on my breathing on several occasions.

Once I swung my feet outside the plane, all my nerves were gone. We exited the plane at 11,000ft AGL. I got into my arch and stabilized within a couple seconds, then did two practice pulls. By 9,500ft both instructors had released me. I was stable--no turning, no tenseness, good altitude awareness--until around 7,000ft. Then I realized my pull time was approaching and tensed up. That caused me to start chipping (skydive talk for wobbling) a little, though it still wasn't bad. Kelly was worried that I had lost altitude awareness, so he took a light hold on my harness around 5500ft, but just after he got a hold of me I waved off and pulled. My pull wasn't great. I de-arched and twisted my body slightly, causing a sideways drift--but I finally managed to hold on to my rip cord! Under canopy I played around with some sharper turns and spirals before heading towards the landing area and taking directions from the radio. When I touched down, I was beaming. The feeling of excitement and accomplishment was great. From now on when I start freaking myself out before a jump, I'm going to try to think back to that moment and about how much fun I had.

Kelly got this one on video, so I was able to look over it and actually see what I did right and wrong, which was really nice. Everyone who wasn't busy in the hangar came over and watched as well, so I got lots of input from various instructors and experienced skydivers. A couple people expressed surprise at how well I did--they expected me to be one of the ones that went spinning out of control after being released. I think that might have something to do with the fact that I am rather out of shape and could definitely use to lose a few (ok fine... more than a few) pounds. In any case, I passed category C-1. Next time I'll be jumping with just one instructor, and I have a mental list of things to practice before then.

Unfortunately, it might be a while before I get to make that next jump. Once I'm back in Idaho (which will be some time tomorrow afternoon... I'm at a motel in Utah on my way home right now), my money is committed elsewhere. Stinking obligations... I liked having a relaxing summer and just playing every weekend. Oh well. As soon as I'm able to come up with the cash, I'm off to my new DZ in Idaho to continue with my AFF lessons. My goal is to make it through the course without having to repeat any jumps. I doubt that will actually happen, but I'm off to a good start with the first three.