A Minute to Remember

Prelude

There always has to be some adventure in our trips, maybe because straightforward touristy place hopping is not our type. My Bigger Half (BH) is a very outdoorsy person, very much interested in outdoor adventurous activities. But I am not an adrenaline junkie nor a thrill seeker and surely do not consider myself to be in good shape for many physically challenging activities. Yet I follow suit my BH in many of the activities he pursues. And this time my BH got his hearts hooked on DIVING, not just from anywhere but from a plane thousands of feet up in the air. Now I had seen and heard of it before, and as usual viewing it on TV always makes it look easy breezy. But did I have it in me to jump from that heights was my initial thoughts. Next came the concern of the paralyzing, stomach-falling feeling that I always get on roller coasters or any speed rides. I hate this queasy feeling which has made me stay away from theme parks all my life. So the days before the jump were filled with anxious queries. My BH kept his eyes on the skies (literally!) whenever we would step out. He would suddenly spot an aircraft and tell me “Look at that plane, we might be jumping off from that height”. I couldn’t bear seeing planes thereafter.

TAKE 1

We had chosen Prague as our sky diving destination, as the sky diving company, Sky Centrum Prague, was providing very economic rates for budget conscious travelers with a good safety rate. We booked our slots for October 2016, though the autumn chill had already set in. My BH kept chanting “skydiving” all day and I was just trying to keep my nerves cool. In an unfortunate turn of events, on the day of our travel to Prague, our wallet and permits got stolen in the Parisian metro and we were unable to board our flights. We were forced to cancel all our bookings for the trip along with the skydiving slot reservation.

TAKE 2

My BH did not give up, he again booked us for a tandem jump for November. But we were out of luck again and the company cancelled our dives owing to bad weather just 2 days before our journey. I finally removed the expectation of (and the fear of) diving from my mind. BH was quite disappointed and kept sketching the next attempt stealthily.

FINAL TAKE

Our final attempt was scheduled for June 8, 2017, a day before our darling son’s 3rd birthday. Nothing went wrong and we reached Pargue. The company hadn’t cancelled the dives either. On 8th, we were supposed to be meeting a person from the company at a meeting point at 1 pm and then follow his instructions to the drop zone. We spent that morning roaming Pargue old town, the famous Charles Bridge, and even tasting the famous Prague street food trdelník (though we had decided to keep our stomachs empty before the sky dive).

And then it started, a series of dive cancelling incidents.

First, after we reached the meeting point we couldn’t find anybody there. After calling up the office, we were told we should be all boarding their vehicle and that would take us to the skydiving spot. And they wouldn’t transport nondivers. We were a group of 7 adults and a toddler, out of this only 5 had decided to dive. So we insisted that we follow them with our own vehicle. But they were not completely satisfied with this and started telling us that they will give us directions to the place and we have to be at the place by 2 pm or else we wouldn’t be able to dive. The place was 50 mins away from the city and it was already 1.15 pm. So we were all in a fix. I was weirdly happy that it looked like I wouldn’t after all be jumping out of a plane. My BH was totally disappointed and furious as he had conveyed our situation correctly to the company and was totally expecting to dive that day.

But my BH did not give up. He told the company that we would drive up to the place and then discuss. So we started to drive by 1.45 pm in that direction. I had already started nagging my BH telling him that God is repeatedly hampering our attempts at skydiving, which means he is indicating that it is not a good idea to dive. When God is giving us hints, we are not supposed to go against it and then regret. This made my BH more furious. He did drive like he was in a mad race. But to his bad luck, we got struck in an underground maze of Prague tunnels, lost the GPS signal and lost the right exit, costing us some more precious time. But my BH still didn’t call it quits. He came out of the maze and got back into the race!

Our skydiving destination was Pribram Airport, an old airport now used by flying and paragliding clubs near the outskirts of Prague. With no proper road signs or people who spoke English, even after reaching close to the airport area, we got lost (with GPS navigation!). After going round in circles, we got back on track and finally found our drop zone.

Minutes Before the Dive

When we reached there it was nearing 3 pm. I thought “now for sure we can’t t dive”. I wanted to dive and yet I didn’t want to dive. This was my weird predicament and so I was happy if the dive was called off without me having to quit. My husband went in to speak with the staff. This was the nail-biting, suspense-filled wait of my life! Will I or wont I die.. Ooops dive!! My BH came back with a grin: he had managed to get us all into two slots. He was diving in a slot before ours at 4 pm and I and our friends were in the same batch at 4.30. My joy turned into nervousness.

We had to sign all the disclaimer forms and were shown a short video as a flash training (or crash training, so I thought) on the do’s and dont’s of skydiving, the exit and landing positions and the hand signals used by the instructors. They promised that the free fall would last a minute. To add on to my superstition, when our turn came and we were supposed to get ready for the dive, I didn’t get the suit of my size, I didn’t get the harness, nor was I shown the diving position. I was not happy with all these negative indicators. But I got suited up in an over-sized suit and waited for my turn. In my mind and openly I accepted that I was afraid of diving. But what scared me more was the fear of the unknown. I didn’t know what would happen after I leap out of the plane at those heights, how I would feel physically and mentally and how I would react to it. What if I go berserk in midair, all panicky and shocked! What if I don’t jump after reaching the doors! Too many what ifs running in my mind. I just kept that nervous expression going. I must have been the only one like that. My husband was excited and so were our friends and their parents aged 52 and 60 who had both signed up for the dive. I thought now I can’t back out. I will regret it for sure!

My husband went in first and came back enthralled. He came up to me and told me there was nothing to worry and everything would happen smoothly and quickly….

Then it Started

I think we might have ascended for 10 mins or so in our tiny little plane carrying an instructor/jumpmaster for every participant diver, so a total of 14 ppl + 1 camera man+ of course the pilot. The jumpmasters seemed so relaxed and were chit chatting with each other animatedly. And we, on the other hand, were looking at each other and smiling nervously. Each having racing thoughts of the jump. The plane ascends rather rapidly to the needed heights, and the view from the window keeps zooming out with passing seconds. As usual it was my internal fight of trying to overcome my stupid fear of the unknown. I prayed to all Gods to keep the entire thing safe and to help me overcome my fears or at least keep it in control and not jeopardize myself and others or give the guy responsible for me a tough time!!

Though the jumpmasters looked like they are not going to be diving any time soon, they were promptly putting on their gears and getting their respective first time divers ready on their laps by strapping them to themselves as tightly as possible. But for some reason, my guy was not getting ready when his colleagues had started their routine. I thought maybe we were the last ones to dive so he is waiting for the last few mins. Just when we all reached 4000 meters, one guy shouted out the altitude and everyone was nearly ready by then. Finally, my instructor asked me to sit on his lap and strapped me tightly. The other jumpmasters started to make their special hand shakes and hi-fi’s (a small routine of theirs, I guess to cheer us up). I too shook hands and did hi-fi’s but not with the same spirit as theirs.

Did I or Didn’t I

The cameraman sprinted to the door and threw it open. And I knew this was it. To top it, the first girl about to dive started screaming her lungs out in the aircraft even before the walk up to the door. It made my resolution to stay composed shakey. Though it looked like there was a gap of few minutes between each jump, in reality we all exited the flight very quickly one after the other. In no time, I was near the door and the instructor was asking me to get into the exit position. For known reasons, my legs were not lifting up and the instructor had to repeat himself thrice before I managed to get into my position. The sense of giving up came to me in seconds. But as it was not in my control to quit, my instructor had made the dive. I looked up and rested on his shoulders, and the next second of exiting the aircraft we had tilted face down beginning our free fall.

The jumpmaster kept showing hand signals and asking me to leave my hands free and asking me to do thumbs up (as if posing for a snap, though no cameras were around!). The wind kept blowing on my face but I reminded myself to breathe from my nose. I tried to keep looking down and not close my eyes or open my mouth (to shout) all this with my hands still up in the thumbs up position (I had forgotten about them). We kept falling with good speed but at those heights the distance covered is unnoticeable. I just hung on to my nerves and stayed calm. I then realized that I did not get the stomach-falling sensation. Aaha! What a relief! The temperature was not too low as to freeze us and the wind speed was not too high as to make breathing difficult. The visibility was very clear. All in all, a perfect day to skydive.

The jumpmaster was still making signs in the air one after the other and I was not understanding the hand signals at all as I already had too much on my mind and he was too quick (he just wanted to get done with his protocol). So I wasn’t prepared when the instructor deployed the parachute during our free fall, what could have been way less than a minute. I jerked up and down like a toy thrown in the air before reaching a vertical position and took a few more seconds to register that we were gliding in the air with the parachute and the dreaded free fall was done and dusted. I thanked all the Gods of the world and started to enjoy my view. I could see clusters of tiny houses, green meadows, lakes that looked like potholes and even highways with actively moving vehicles. I didn’t know why but the view didn’t feel unique as it looked very similar to what we would usually see from an aircraft window. I had expected the feel of getting a bird’s eye view while actually flying like a bird to be something different. Maybe the fall and the nervousness prior to it had numbed my senses to an extent or the pair of glasses that I was given to wear was with smudges hence giving the effect of an aircraft’s window. But all this came to an abrupt stop as my parachute started to swirl and jerk and twist and turn. And that disliked stomach-falling, stomach-lurching feeling that I oh so hate started. I couldn’t tolerate it. To top it, I heard my copilot say ” oh ohh! ” and he kept steering the parachute in a jerky, swirly way. I thought I had thanked the Gods a bit too early. I had got excited about having gone through the free fall without a scratch or a shout a bit too hastily. And here I was clinging on to dear life by few threads, literally! After a couple of minutes, the frequency of the twists and turns reduced slightly and when I could catch my breath, I slowly asked my executor “Is everything alright?” and he answered with an unflustered rather relaxed tone ” yes, everything is fine.” Was this how they were trained, not to show fear in their voices in the face of emergencies so that we don’t start panicking and shout our lungs out or was this entire maneuver a part of their flying routine, I knew not. Now I again started to pray, “God don’t kill me for thanking you a bit too early, please God please!” I also started praying that he quit all this acrobatics and got me back to land as soon as he could. He also seemed to be in a hurry as we were the last batch and he might have dived and glided 15 times before this all day and wanted to go home, so the land was getting closer quickly. But that feeling in my stomach with every jerk and turn was not letting me enjoy the gliding completely. I had feared I would face this during the free fall but free fall seemed like a piece of cake compared to this gliding. But in between the turns and twists I did try to take my mind off my stomach and enjoy.

When the little airstrip was getting more and more closer, I was already celebrating the success of having achieved another challenging adventure. I was soon asked to take the landing position. I quickly pulled up my legs and kept it perpendicular to my body. And by completing the last circle around the airport, we finally came close to the ground with good speed. I thought I would feel a bad thump on my landing spot. But surprisingly we landed pretty smoothly for the speed, mostly because he took all the impact on himself and I landed on his lap. I got up feeling completely dizzy. I somehow managed to shake my saviour’s hand and thank him for the ride and to my surprise he took it with a gentle smile, the first ever since our meeting. Maybe he is so used to seeing the first timers go through a full cycle of feelings from beginning till the landing and so he doesn’t get over friendly at first and lets us be in our space and finally ends it with a humble smile when we are finally exhilarated.

My BH was near the landing patch ready with the camera to capture my first reactions. I walked up to him or swaggered up to him shouting and hugged him to thank him for again making me do something that I secretly wanted to but would not have done without his persuasion!

I am not the bravest nor am I fearless but I am happy I fight myself to do such adventures and make memories for a lifetime!

-Missadventure