Day 85 – Suicide with an umbrella

Blue sky! It had to be on so when the driver met us and confirmed we’d be jumping we were pretty happy, with a tinge of nervousness.

We had to suffer the same journey out to Tully but instead of turning off for the river we went to the airfield. After sitting about for a while a lady came to sort out our ’sign your life away’ paperwork. All appeared sorted until she asked us for printed confirmation. I’d told here it’d been stolen and I’d confirmed with their Cairns office. She was having non of it and got me to print off email proof. Still not enough she was asking for a copy of my credit card until they could confirm with another office tomorrow. By now I wasn’t best pleased and reluctantly agreed; I couldn’t face the drive out again another day!

We were then instructed to board the bus as we’d be going to the beach to watch another group land before bringing them back. Mission Beach was about a half an hour drive and on arrival the heat and bright light knocked me back. The view was you typical sight for Oz, golden sand, turquoise water, blue sky and a jelly fish net.

Moments later we started to see parachutes appear form the deep blue sky. We watched them as they spiraled towards the earth and zipped in for a soft landing on the beach. From that moment I knew this was going to be fun!

Returning to the base I met with my tandem jump master, well when I say met he grunted my name, got my harness on and buggered off. tom’s guy was much more talkative. Think he, Pierre, either jumped out of the plane on the wrong side this morning or I was going to be his last jump. Either was I expected more. Things looked up when the office lady said she’d sorted things and destroyed my card info.

Ten minutes later the plane landed and we packed ourselves onto the two benches that ran the length of the small plane. As Tom and I were jumping from 11,000 feet, slightly lower than the rest, we got to sit right by the half open door and enjoy the best views. It was quite something being able to stick my hand or foot our for the door as we climbed at 200kph. The drop zone was over the sea so we got some great views of the coast, islands and part of the reef. In the distance huge thunder clouds were forming but Pierre said this was the clearest it’d been for weeks.

Just before it was time to jump I notices the jump lights; the red one was labelled ‘low fuel’ and the green one labelled ‘evacuate’. Tom went first; shuffling round until he was sat with his legs out of plane then, after a three count, he was gone. I was next and before we jumped asked Pierre if we could have some fun on the way down. Before I really knew what was going on we’d back flipped out of the plane and I was staring out at the sea. It wasn’t as daunting as the bungy and I really enjoyed the freedom of it.

After around 40 seconds the parachute was deployed and I felt the bite of the harness as we decelerated. After practicing the landing position we glided about in a wide corkscrew. This was my favourite part as I had more time to look around at the ocean and the land. At times I could see Tom turning in the distance. The ground rush of the landing brought it home how fast we were going but the landing was smooth and soft under foot on the beach. It has got to be the best way to arrive at the beach! A minute later we saw the rest of the group land.

Heading back to the bus we were told we’d have to wait an hour at the beach before the return to Cairns. What a shame, an hour sun bathing on a beautiful beach; well I suppose it is the day of rest!

Back in Cairns I went out for training session before dinner. It was back to the usual levels of heat and humidity and I found it pretty hard going. I’ve heard Alice Springs is going to be even hotter – might just stay in the pub there.

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