Jumped again...

[mccordia 74]

After an incredible trip to Venice (Italy) on my motorcycle (together with my Girl:) and a free 10 day (WHOOHOOO) trip to Talinn (Estland/Estonia) for a filmfestival, I had a great time, but realy missed what I love (second)most....skydiving :)
It had already been 4 weeks since I made my last jump..
So friday evening I called a few friends, and we headed of to the DZ at 7:00 AM the next morning.
Although winds where okay on ground level, it was realy bad at anything higher than 500ft (10 m/s winds) which ment no students and/or rental gear went up.
Against better judgement we all decided to wait for the winds to die down.
And finaly at 16:00 I heard someone shout my name through the hangar.
The winds had died down just enough.
I was hoping for a ride to 6 or 9.000 , but due to passing traffic we could only go to 4.000.
So all geared up, and up into the old C206.
Takeoff was wonderfull, smiling all the way up, looking at other guys and girls with one of those 'MAN THIS IS GREAT' smiles on my face, and getting one of those 'YEA, WE KNOW...THIS IS INCREDIBLE' looks in return :)
One thing that's great about not jumping for a long time is that everything feels kinda 'new' again, and the butterflies start flying through my stomache again, just when I thought I had tammed them :)
I was the first one out the door, just checking my altimeter before exiting it pointed 4.200 ft...wow 200 ft extra free of charge :)
Looking down, sun on my face, and the JM gives a tap on my shoulder and gently askes me 'ready?'
So I say "YEAAA" and jump on out.
100% joy is what I experienced the next few seconds in what always seem like minutes...
Nothing fancy, just falling and looking at and enjoying the surroundings.
This incredible happy feeling from deep within that just makes you want to scream, but instead you just keep it inside and feel this big lump in your throat.
Then came 3.200 ft, and out came the ripcord.
Had a real stable deploiment and no twist, slider hangups or anything. A nice big yellow Drakkar above my head with sunlight shining through the fabric.
A few hundred meters up and away I see other chutes pop open.
'Life is great' is about the only thought in my mind at that time.
Then I decided that as long as I'm up here, I might as well do something, so I started doing a bunch of turns and practice flairs.
Then came 1000 ft and it was time to start my final approach.
I was still heavily enjoying myself, when all of a sudden I looked down.
750 ft is what my alti say, but a small shock went through me and "Hey....this aint no 750 ft, 300 Ft is more like it" is what I thought.
I had to make some big adjustments to try and not end up in the wind-sock, and beause I wasn't facing into the wind properly yet I was also blown left a bit every time I steered right.
The ground kept coming up faster and the binoculair stand (a 1 meter metal pole, logged into the ground) was still in front of me. I had to pull my right toggle down almost halfway to avoid hitting it.
Clearing the pole with anough distance I was to far down to let my togles back up to get a decent flair, so I just brought the other one down halfway and then janked them both to 100%, but it didn't realy help.
The ground came up faster then I expected and with a big THUD I went into the ground as a bag full of sh*t .
I managed to do a decent roll onto the ground, and am happy to report that even today I don't have any sore limbs or anything at all, but MAN did I hit the ground hard.
After dusting of I got up and walked up to my friends (who hadn't jumped yet) and they where laughing their butts off.
I always land with a nice standup, and finaly I have a few friends watching and this happens :)
Actualy it didn't realy bother me they where laughing, cause I was 100% okay, and think it could have ended a lot worse (broken ankles and such)
After getting back to the hangar I got a lot of 'feedback' from my JM who wouln't believe my altimeter was pointing 750 ft when I was at 300. Although I didn't completely agree with everything he sayd, I did learn a good and valuable lesson today.
Although I'm usualy pretty aware what 750/1000 ft looks like from above, this time I was just to pre-occupied with 'being happy'.
When I realized how low I was I didn't realy panic, but everything went so incredibly fast from there, it was realy an eye-opener to stay alert during final approach, and stay focused on the surroundings...no matter how much fun I'm having...
After I folded my chute I heard that winds had increased again, I I could not go up again (which is always something I realy want to do when I did a jump which I feel real bad about) and even worse..my friend didn't get to go up at all...
Then came the worst part of the day.
We where all called in by the DZ owner and he had just recieved a call from a DZ nearby, where two students got entangled with their parachutes during final approach.
One got out, and landed with (minor?) injuries, but the other guy landed in a tree and hit it so hard he broke his back and died instantly.
News like this always hits hard, especialy since Holland aint that big a country when it comes to the skydiving community.
Ater this news everyone just went quiet and a most people went home, as did we.
So I finaly jumped again, but instead of going home happy, I felt verry mixed up.
This was also the first fatalty in holland since I started jumping oktober last year, and although I don't know the people involved, it realy got to me (way more then 'normal 'accidents in traffic and such like you read about every day)
My condolances to friends and family, and I wish everyone involved a lot of strenght for the days to come.
Safe jumping and blue skies forever..
Jarno