Well with the crazy weather we’re having at the minute, I had to take a couple of days off work to head to the DZ and see about getting some more skydives in.

Clearly a few people had the same idea, bit busier than normal on a weekday (I think).

I rocked up at about 9:30, the instructors had already gone through the drills with other students so weren’t best pleased at me turning up a bit late – thankfully others rolled up much later so my bad was quickly forgotten.

For my level 3 skydive I needed 2 instructors, which no doubt caused a bit of a delay in me getting my first jump in, turned out to be around 2pm in fact.

From my AFF level 2 jump on Saturday, this skydive was simply amazing. Saturday’s jump was after sitting around all day, and I just wasn’t really focused anymore.

Today I was all guns blazin’! Once we’d got out the plane and stable, both instructors let go so I could have a bit of free time to work on my body position. Apart from my legs which don’t listen to me and won’t straighten, everything went fantastic, and that was certainly the turning point for me of REALLY enjoying it now.

1 practice pull before the free-time, in which I dinked one of the instructors on the head and knocked her camera a bit – must learn to relax with those pulls a little!

Altitude awareness was spot on, and I was loving it – 6,000 feet came around and I pulled, the instructors grabbed hold again for the pull, just in case there was a fumble like before.

The canopy ride was again great fun, some harder spirals this time, always to the point that I start brickin’ it, then letting the steering toggle back up.

With the helmet radios we have, we sometimes get talked down, this time I was instructed to stay heading into wind. With my arms straight up, it doesn’t take long for the pains to kick-in, but not wanting to try a turn and get told to turn back, I just waited for the altitude to drop off.

For my next skydive, the AFF Level 4, the instructor asked me if I wanted any talking down – “Leave it to me” I said, now I can really have my own fun and land on my own.

So Level 4 rolls on pretty quickly, and this time it’s with 1 instructor. She was the “inside” instructor, so when it came time to get ready at the door, it’s me, then the door, a daunting thought that had been troubling me for the past few days, “what if I accidentally fall out”, etc. 🙂

The ride up for jump 4 was the usual semi-chilled journey of around 10-15 minutes. With the odd dashing of “why am I doing this?”, “this’ll probably be the last one for me”, and “I don’t think this skydiving stuff is for me”, all thrown in to give you lots to think about.

Funny thing is, mention any of this to the other students, and you quickly learn they’re all thinking exactly the same thing! 🙂

If it IS for them and they keep doing it, then may it is actually for me!

The Level 4 skydive was a little more of a fall than a “jump” out of the plane, I could certainly tell there was no instructor pulling me out in addition to me “jumping”.

Getting stable took a bit longer, again, all down to “straighten your legs” and my legs simply not listening, or not listening for long enough.

Now this skydive should have had me doing 90 degree turns, which my instructor was telling me to do, yet I just missed her signals. I was concentrating on heading, and checking altitude, to turn and face the other way where the instructor was, I think I was expecting hand signals right in front of my face like before.

Oh well, I still passed, and with Level 5 being 360 degree turns, I’ll be turning in no time anyway.

Now, it’s 22:30 and I’m knackered, time for bed and see if I can get up early enough tomorrow to take more advantage of this weather!