Day 9 - Touching the Void

The idea came from one of my best friends and soon after, a few of us (we know each other for almost 20 years!) had signed in for a sky dive session.

The weeks prior to the event there were loads of emails going backwards and forwards with jokes, videos and even some old news about freak accidents. Some people were having second (or, in fact, first) thoughts about the whole thing and were secretly considering skipping the session and forfeiting their reservation fee.

Then, on the weekend we had booked, the weather was awful and they canceled all dives (the small airplanes in which you are taken lack any sort of radar, they can only operate if there is fairly good visibility). We had to re-book a session for the following weekend. the best metaphor to describe this maybe is to have been told you had 1 month left to live due to a chronic disease only to be told by the doctor, the day before last, that you had one more week. "Come on doc, I was ready now... why prolong the agony?"

So we went. Despite the weather forecast not being great and the sky in Madrid being completely covered, when we called on Saturday morning the centre they told us they were going ahead as scheduled. I am sure we all secretly cursed them.

We spent several hours at the Diving Centre because the weather was really not all that great and the flights were getting delayed. It was amazing being there and, every 30 minutes or so, seeing parachutes coming out of the clouds and managing to land, all of them, in a quite reduced green field. When our turn came, we were hoping to jump all together but in the end, Floro and Gonzo went first and soon after (we didn't even get a chance to see them land) it was the turn for Alex and me.

How to describe the experience? Difficult, believe be. My "only" concern was that I thought the first few seconds of free fall, due to the quick acceleration, were going to be pretty uncomfortable. Later, when the time actually came, I must admit I felt no such thing (mostly because it takes just a few seconds for you to reach maximum speed).

We were all crammed in the small airplane. 3 jumpers with 3 tandem instructors and 3 cameras. Alex, who was closest to the door was to go first. At 4,000 meters Alex's camera man opened the door to the plane which was a slide door much like the one in the A Team's black van. Alex and his "entourage" went first, my turn had come...

We went into position which basically means my legs and body where outside the plane, my head looking upwards, and my back completely arched. The weird position and the fact that I had a guy behind me to which I was attached, did not make me feel very comfortable.

The instructor made a sign to the camera and we jumped at the same time. Unbelievable! We stabilized as I said earlier within seconds and from then onwards the feeling was probably similar to hovering 2 meters from the floor by the force of a huge fan. At times the camera man was so close that at one point we almost shook hands!

The view was spectacular. Despite the cloudy day we had jumped on a clear spot and there was not a cloud around us. During the free fall it was actually difficult to visually notice that we were getting closer to the ground as all the reference points were hundreds of meters away from us. The rest is simple: the parachute opened and we went around in circles for a while before landing and joining all the friends waiting for us in the air field.



Another tick in the TODO list of life. What next?