Skydiving gigantic leap of faith
It's only halfway to Cairns Airport that it hits me what I'm about to do.
Coops, skydive professional and the bloke I’m about to entrust with my life during a tandem skydive jump says, “Oops, I think I might have forgotten my backup parachute.”
It takes about five seconds for me to process this information. Then it hits me. Coops has forgotten. To. Take. His. Backup. Parachute. He snickers softly at my expression. Of course he hasn’t – he’s a professional after all.
It’s something I cling to as I stare down at the ground, 14,000 feet above sea level. It’s a mantra. “He’s a professional. HE’S. A. PROFESSIONAL. I. WILL. NOT. DIE.”
t the doorway of the teeny plane that’s brought us up to this altitude, all my brain can process is that my body will be leaping to its death. This is entirely normal, I tell myself.
What we’re about to do, after all, is everything that is against Mother Nature. She didn’t intend for us, for example, to leap off 14,000 feet mountain tops and survive the fall. Every instinct in my body is rebelling; the brain says “jump”, but the body’s not too keen to obey.
It’s a good thing, then, that I’m strapped securely to Coops. As I lean forward, cheeks vibrating from the force of the wind and yelling “Nooooooo” with my hands crossed in front of me, exactly as I was taught at Skydive HQ, Coops leans forwards and suddenly we’re tumbling madly, head over heels in free air. It’s like doing somersaults on speed in a gravity-free environment. It feels like I’ve left my brain in the air even as we’re speeding down to earth. The wind is loud, noisy and surprisingly violent. I’m yelling, I’m whooping and I’m loving it. It’s nuts.
“Arch!” yells Coops, and in the far recesses of my brain, I realise it’s time to do the other easy-peasy manoeuvre they showed me at the office: Arch my back and legs. I do that, and suddenly I hear the reassuring noise of a chute popping open and I relax.
And this is where the best bit begins. After the adrenaline rush of a minute of freefall comes a peaceful and gentle journey back down to earth. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamt it would be. If you’ve ever had “flying dreams” then this is exactly how it feels like. I spread my hands out experimentally, and I realise nothing bad is happened. Stuck to my professional skydiver, I could do whatever I liked. I was weightless; I could twirl, I could pirouette, and it was all leading me serenely down to earth.
“Legs up” says Coops and I stretch my legs out. We skim the ground and ever-so-gently, I’m back down on earth again.
See, Coops is a professional, and I didn’t die after all.
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