Long winded post about a bad jumping weekend.

[xybe 0]

0:2:12 (litres)
After exchanging several Emails with a local skydiver he agreed to take me to a large DZ a few hours across the border for the weekend. Right now I have to do all my jumps across the border since local authorities require that I complete 30 jumps before they issue a permit.
During the whole weekend I was filled with the anxiety and expectation only aspiring skydivers know. I could not help but feel awkward, away from home in a small drop zone with complete strangers for company. I broke every unwritten law for etiquette and humility, interrupting skygods as they told their stories, talking about places I had never been, equipment I never laid my hands on and techniques I had only seen in pictures.
On Saturday fog was all that there was to see, a thick, cold fog that engulfed the airport as if it was going to swallow it and cast it into darkness forever. This did nothing to better my mood. However on Sunday the DZO’s verdict was that jumps could be made. In hindsight, students should have stayed in terra firma since the dogleg wind carried many of them way beyond the safety area.
Butterflies filled my stomach in the plane, the coach told me I was to do an AFF 4 style jump. That made me feel really uncomfortable, only three weeks before I was doing solos wit a hand deployed rig… I could not help but feeling like I was being demoted. During the climb to altitude I was informed that the jump should be made from 6 thousand feet. Only my anxiety could exceed my disappointment at the time. I never jumped below 10 thousand feet, excepting the time when due to an engine malfunction I had to exit at 8 thousand.
I should have known I was not prepared for the jump, my mental program was set for 13 thousand and I could not override it now, definitely not without some serious briefings.
When the exit run came I was already overcame with adrenaline, I stumbled into position for my first ever low-wing plane exit, my first jump at that DZ and my first jump below 8 thousand feet. On exit I forgot it was not a dive and folded my knees, this put me into a backloop I could not correct, next thing I knew my canopy was opening.
The instructor pulled my ripcord for me, now my self-esteem was below the ground. This was completely unacceptable and it was hard for me to concentrate on the landing. I tried to face the wind and to stay in a safety area but was crabbing badly. It was obvious I was not facing the wind. I corrected my position, there was an obvious dogleg wind vector almost perpendicular to the wind in the ground. I grabbed my front risers and pulled them as much as I could, but the canopy was to much for my poor upper body strength.
I could not recognize anything from the aerial picture, but there was a canopy only a couple of hundred feet below me and I decided to follow it. These strong wind situations under huge canopies are the one time one it’s great to be a fat bastard. My landing was impeccable, I touched the ground very softly and yanked a control line to flag the canopy.
Unfortunately for me I landed in a zone designated for sports canopy pilots only, not for students. It was never my intention to show off, especially not after the humbling experience of having someone else pull my ripcord for me. Yet I could not help but feel some people in the dropzone thought otherwise.
Still shedding whuffo-ness
Check out the Hardcore Whuffo pages

[DZBone 0]

Sounds like a major bummer.
Do this. Print out a copy of your post and put it in an envelope marked "Do Not Open Until 2005". I assure you that reading it then will give you a huge laugh, when you are one of the skygods hanging around watching cocky new students come in spouting off and landing in the wrong place.
In the meantime, remember that each skydive is a wonderful experience that most people never have a chance to enjoy. It's just that some are more wonderful than others.

Quote

a local skydiver he agreed to take me to a large DZ a few hours across the border

Sounds so intreguing. Did you have to travel under the cover of darkness, and communicate by bird calls? Did local underground operatives hide you from the authorities while you made your way there?

[Michele 1]

What was so bad? (Wait, I'm explaining...)
You got out into the air, you, in fact were able to handle the anxiety and the total unexpectedness of the jump, dealt with a new airplane, and you landed impeccably....in a brand new dz, where you didn't have a good sight picture and, as I gather, only a little briefing. Hmmmm. O.k....
You did good, imho. In a phrase of a friend, you took all the curves, and still hit them out of the park. Good for you. The next jump will be better.
Ciel bleu-
Michele

[xybe 0]

Thanks for your support, especially you, Michele.
I think that the worst part was feeling so out of place and anxiuos about the possibility of not jumping. That and failing to opening my parachute
You guys are definitely right, I did not get hurt so I will quit whining.
Perhaps it was because reality crashed with my expectations, especially on the social part. I think it was closer to culture shock than skydyving disappointment. I just did not feel home there (in Argentina) as I do in Brazil where they speak in a different language (Portuguese as opposed to Spanish).
Anyway, the second jump was a lot of fun. Different plane, different coach, same altitude, same lousy exit. The good thing is that I was altitude-aware that time. We barely managed to get stable before I deployed at a very healthy 4.5 thousand feet. I drifted with the wind about a mile and a half off the area but managed to land softly nect to the runway.
Still shedding whuffo-ness
Check out the Hardcore Whuffo pages

[freeflir29 0]

Let me see...you went to a foreign DZ, did a student jump where the instructor wasnt speaking your native language, new DZ, new plane, new everything. Thats a lot of pressure for a student. Learn from it. You lived....It's all OK. Drink a few beers and laugh at yourself. Cause if you cant laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at.
"I used to know a girl...She had two pirced nipples and a black tattoo"-Everclear
Clay