Following the instructions to drive down SH6, I missed the NZONE dropzone sign & ended up in a very exclusive looking lakeside estate.
Oops!
Oops!
Back on SH6 headed north, I found the sign & turned left.
On check-in, I chose the video option, & found out Nic was to operate the camera. She's from NZ, & the current NZONE website blurb says she's had about 10,000 drops.
Gosh!
Nic is a Tandem Master as well as a skydiving photographer.
Gosh!
Nic is a Tandem Master as well as a skydiving photographer.
 |
| The NZOne loo |
After a trip to the DropZone loo, Nic took me to get kitted out, & to meet Sasa, the tall Serbian I was to be strapped to.
His name is pronounced Sasha, btw
Here's a link to him going it alone!
NZONE Skydive's Sasa Jojic Skysurfing over Queenstown ... - YouTube
When I googled him, I found a link in a language I don't read, but I saw the name Orlando Bloom, so maybe Sasa took Legolas Greenleaf up for a freefall??
The NZONE website blurb says he's from Yugoslavia (Der? Why have I written Serbian in my notes? Um? He must be from the Serbian bit of old Yugoslavia?)
Skydive Operations Manager Sasa has made over 29,000* skydives and is a double Yugoslavian champion with a record five years on his home country's skydiving team. Sasa looks after daily skydive operations and has been with NZONE since 1998. Sasa is both a Tandem Instructor and XLR8 (AFF) Skydive Training Instructor.
* Golly gosh :-0
I'd watched the briefing video while waiting for my time slot, and I also got the chat about safety, & how to position my arms & legs while strapped to Sasa's chest.
The next step was to put on the togs & tandem harness.
And, as usual, I needed the smallest helmet because I have a child-sized head %\
 |
| The parachute packing area |
 |
| Nic, me & Sasa the Serbian. Like I said, he was very tall! |
I was to have a pre-fall on-camera interview with Nic ~ see vid :-O
This could've gone better in my opinion ~ I sounded like a total nana, for a start, to say nothing of looking crazy, as I was still a jinja minga!
 |
| The aircraft |
 |
| The fallers file out to the flying machine |
I took a few photos for posterity, & Nic took a couple of me before my camera was stashed away.
I suppose it would never do for an unsuspecting member of the public to get their noggin demolished by a free-falling camera!
We got loaded singly, but attached to our respective Tamden Masters straightaway once we we in. It was a little like sardines in a tin!
Nic took some vid of me sat between Sasa's legs as we ascended to 15,000 feet, & I kept waiting for the adrenaline to kick in.
It was quite a lot of dosh to do the jump, but I figured if I was going to do it, I may as well fall for as long as they allowed.
From memory it was about 400NZ$ for the furthest free-fall of 60 seconds, & still nearly 300NZ$ for only 25 seconds, so I opted for a big drop.
The pair in front of us got the go-ahead, & dropped out of sight, then pair 2 went.
Then it was us!
Nic climbed out & took up her filming position on the fusilage above the door, & we sat on the edge of the doorway. My butt-cheeks were barely in contact as we waited.
And I still wasn't scared, or even vaguely apprehensive.
Weird?!
Maybe it was the lack of sleep the night before?
I felt a bit like I did at the Shotover Canyon Swing in 2011. Excited, but not scared.
Anyway, the OK came, & Sasa rocked us out.
There was no sensation of falling at all. Just the wind. But you can get wind like that on a mountain top, so even that wasn't unusual.
However, the view from up there was Amazing!
Nic dropped with us & videoed it. She kept saying something, but I couldn't hear for the wind.
I could've free-fallen a lot longer (but hitting the ground at 200kph would then have been a messy problem :-p )
I remember saying Wow as we left the aircraft, & doing nothing much else for the whole minute of the free-fall, except grin stupidly.
I grinned so long & so wide that my jaw felt frozen as we came into land. It was a bit like that feeling when you schuss a long way on a very cold day in the alps :-)
When Sasa pulled the cord, I suddenly saw how fast we'd been falling as Nic dropped to a little spec in seconds. She was off down to film my landing, so fell for longer to beat us down.
As with sailing down wind, it was pretty quiet once we cut our speed down.
This is what it says on Wiki:
During a normal deployment, a skydiver will generally experience a few seconds of intense deceleration, in the realm of 3 to 4 g, while the parachute slows the descent from 190 km/h (120 mph) to approximately 28 km/h (17 mph).
When I started to write this blog I noticed there was nothing in my notes to say how far we dropped before Sasa pulled the cord, so I E'd NZONE ( that's Enn Zed One, not Enn Zone ) & asked.
Linde replied, & told me I'd fallen 10,000 feet & the parachute opens at 5,000 feet. That made it sound like the parachute opened on it's own at that altitude?
As the highest point of the Remarkables is about 7,600 feet, I'd fallen down about a mountain & a half ;-p
At the bottom, Josh from Gloucester took a pic of me & Saca, & we both agreed it was awesomely brilliant :-D
Or brilliantly awesome: take your pick.
The Vid
At some point in the proceedings I found out that Sasa had apparently been jumping for 28 years, & my notes say that was 1/2 as long as I'd been alive at the time.
tbh, he barely looked old enough! That's the trouble with getting older: all the policemen (& Tandem Masters) look like teenagers ;-p
So that was it. I'd certainly do it again, but somewhere else for a different view.
Thanks Sasa & Thanks Nic. Major good fun!
I changed out of the fetching flight suit, visited the loo again, & on the way back to Queenstown called in at the Remarkables Shopping Centre for 3 days worth of food at Nomads.
Back in town, I could park the car on Park St. (apt name ;-p ) as I'd already dropped my bags off, so I found a spot to leave it overnight, & walked down to Nomads with my shopping.
They'd put me in a dorm with 1 girl & 4 guys. 3 of the guys were there when I arrived & they were from Manchester, Pamplona & the US. The other guy & girl weren't about.
Down in the kitchen I cooked 2 of the 'yellow label' burgers I'd bought & pan chipped a potato. This main course was preceded by an avocado, & it was washed down with a Pinot Noir from Ake Ake.
I was having another glass & writing my blog notes when the Manager came up & said it was a 'dry hostel'! I don't remember that from 2009 & 2011??? She took my bottle for when I checked out, but my notes say I planned to get it off her when I have my free day on Saturday. Free being ~ I have nothing particular on the schedule.
I was due to be up for my Milford Sound trip pick-up at 0705, so I had an early night. After last night's very late one, & all the general excitement, I was ready for bed!
OAO
No comments:
Post a Comment