With Bon Jovi (Its my life) threatening to burst my speakers, I turned on to dirt road and finally arrived at the jump site. The weather was almost perfect, a beautiful Joburg morning with barely a cloud in sight but with quite a strong northerly wind. This would end up playing a role in my misadventure of the day. I quickly made my way to Manifest and booked my jumps for the day before kitting up.
All students are given a rather stark jump suit in bright yellow, presumably so that it easier to identify us and then direct loud comments in our direction about the number of incidents that occur in the sport. They do this with great relish at any opportunity they get. My already frizzled nerves were given a further shock as the load before mine had a genuine incident.
The guy in question had a huge smile on his face as he recalled how he had tried to correct a severe line twist down to a 1000 feet before going in to a spin and deciding that a cut away was the best option. My hands went white and my bright yellow student helmet strained under the pressure of their embrace.
Fast forwarding to 4000 feet above ground level (keep up - I'm doing static line progression, free fall is but a Youtube video to me at this point) and I was unceremoniously kicked out into the crisp Gauteng air.
Kicking out of a line twist I orientated myself and hugged the upwind side of the dropzone. Almost immediately I picked up static in my radio (first three jumps get directed in to land) and auto tuned with surprisingly clear quality to a local radio station. I was just beginning to zone out and enjoy pirate radio when Liz my instructor brought me back to earth (Excuse the pun).
She took me through a series of 180 degree turns that slowly bled altitude and prepared me to land.
'180 degrees left,' she would say.
'180 degrees left,' I would mutter to myself before burying my toggle into my crotch in my very best pedophile impersonation.
Very soon however I noticed out of the bottom of my eye that something was terribly wrong. Every set of instructions Liz was giving me was being reproduced at a much lower and more dangerous altitude by my fellow ground school alumni, Pier.
I think everyone in the vicinity realized this except poor Pier. No matter how adamantly Liz referred to 'jumper 2' he blindly followed her as he slowly directed himself over the runway. This impromptu synchronized canopy display ended abruptly when he ran out of open sky. In the shape of a small hut. Thankfully he escaped with no injuries.
Of course just the fact that I can recap his flight path in such detail, clearly indicates I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. I had drifted almost 200 meters downwind from the landing zone with promise of more to come.
Adrenaline kicked in as I realized how low I was. No time to reach the club, I resigned to landing in the bush. Unfortunately at this point, once vocal Liz became silent. She later said this was because I was so far away a small crop of trees had obscured me and she had also lost interest.
I flared like a rank beginner, over optimistically high and came to ground like a sack of potatoes. As I was picking myself up, some unidentified sole came on the airwaves and offered to pick me up in the club land rover. Clearly this faceless person doesn't know me or my pride.
As I hitched my parachute above my knees and began to walk, I thought of the lessons this jump had taught me. This revolved centrally around how little effort was required to land a 290 square foot parachute, the 'barn door' as it is now affectionately known. I mean seriously those things will land you safely no matter what.
But mainly I thought to myself as I watched canopies land all around me, it was proof that just like life all you need to do is worry about your own canopy, don't pay too much attention to what others say and you should hit your mark.
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