Some time ago I sat down and wrote my bucket list – the top 100 things to do before I die. Between the more realistic aims – 'learn to like seafood' (tick!) to the rather overly optimistic – 'win an Academy Award', was one that I'm sure or at least I hope most will have on their bucket list too. I am referring
to 'skydiving'.
I'd begged for a jump as my 21st birthday present, but alas, I settled instead for a rather messy party at the skydiving club. But I remember that after I was handed the key to the door of adulthood, standing outside the aeroclub's washroom and as I staring at the photos along the wall. My mum stared at me like I was a 'mad as hatter' nutter (as my mom likes to call anyone interested in adrenaline sports), but
I vowed then and there that I would take the plunge as soon as I got the chance.
My gusto was significantly tamped down after watching Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason. I began to wonder if there wasn't some sort of subliminal message being sent to me at the irony of a ditsy journalist jumping out of an aeroplane for a story and at the crucial moment nearly forgetting to pull the ripcord. Not to mention landing in a mud bath among livestock while live on air.
But having arrived in Dubai with some of my own hard-earned money for the first time in my post-student life,
I decided that now was as good a time as any to make one of my wishes come true. Plus as there was no rain there would be no mud baths to land in either and fortunately no TV cameras to capture my great fall from any unfortunate angle – although I can't say the same for my airborne still frames.
Of course, the Bridget Jones image had left its mark and I needed a push in the right direction so to speak.
An unfortunate trait of mine is to open my mouth and commit without giving too much thought as to the consequences (a reason why I should avoid peeping into the crater of Mt Vesuvius, for example). But as luck would have it, before I could say anything a friend of mine mentioned that he was organising a skydiving jump in Umm Al Quwain.
I pounced on the opportunity and bounced about the room yelling, "Beam me up Scotty!" High fives punctured the air.
But once everyone had left and I was alone with the image of my little wingless body hurtling towards the ground with nothing but strings attached I felt my face burn and a cold sweat break out at the nape of my neck.
I felt numb but comforted myself with my usually brilliant skills of mental negotiations with the inevitable. It was still a whole month away, everyone would probably chicken out and if nothing else worked ... panic would save the day.
But time is impartial, especially when it comes to approaching deadlines. Before I knew it, it was 8am on a Friday morning and my friend and I were driving down to Umm Al Quwain to freefall down 12,000 feet of pure air and very philosophically get our feet back on the ground.
"Maybe I should have called my mother," my friend says, who had failed to inform her of his impending daredevil stunt.
It just so happened that that particular day was her birthday as well and she was a woman who turned to stone at the thought of even sitting in a stationary ferris wheel.
I patted him on the back saying,
it's OK, it's probably for the best.
Why would you want to cause her such inhumane stress, I said to him. Plus I'd hate to be responsible for something as terrible as a sleepless night (we are not even talking of cardiac issues here).
We stopped at a petrol station and ordered a packet of takeaway chilli tacos. Crunching away, it dawned on me that the tacos I was devouring might be my last. In retrospect, it was a bad choice for what could have potentially been my final meal (the fact that you are reading this means it wasn't and I guess I have ruined the ending of the story for you but well, read on ...)
Clearly, my friend was thinking the same thing. There was silence between us except for a sound similar to an angle grinder through plywood (us biting and chewing our way through the terrible tacos). Every passing second of what we were heading for made the tacos more inedible. By the end of it, my stomach felt like a cement mixer. I needed Eno. Or my head examined. I wasn't quite sure which was more imperative.
We arrived at the Umm Al Quwain Aeroclub, the turnoff signposted by a massive grounded aeroplane.
In the cafeteria we were greeted by the rest of our mostly pale posse, sporting varying shades of complexion ranging from red (read excited) to white (nervous) and green (on the brink
of begging for a barf bag).
I sat with pages of indemnity forms in front of me and I went against everything my fine-print expert father taught me and didn't read one word.
I simply signed. One friend shot up his quizzical brow. "What?" I hissed back at him. "Basically all they're saying is that if I die it's not their fault. Can't get worse than that, can it?" He must have decided that I had a point as he hurriedly scrawled at the bottom of each page, handed back the forms like they were hot coals and huddled in the corner looking utterly distressed.
We were taken down to the hangar to be briefed on procedure. I still had a funny feeling in my stomach and
I thought of what those tacos were up to in the playground of my intestines. Then I stopped and reconsidered
my line of thinking. Stop, I told myself. I wasn't cold and clammy.
I wasn't sweating any more than is normal in the UAE heat. I didn't have a rock-like lump in my throat. In fact,
I felt exactly like I did that day looking at the photos outside the aeroclub's washroom: excited.
Suddenly, I was energised. I was totally and absolutely fired up. Ready to rock and roll. If this moment were to be a movie scene, I would've been Rocky Balboa running up the stairs or in a slo-mo shot along the lines of Chariots of Fire. ACDC pounded in my head as we walked towards the aeroplanes on the runway, towards adventure and towards the most tempting wish on my list. I secretly wondered if they'd let me
pull a Superman-like stunt mid-air…
The same couldn't be said for everyone. One friend resembled a seabass: mouth hanging open gawking at the organisers unravelling tangled parachutes. Our instructor's name was Steve and he gave us a rundown on the skydiving process.
Pretty elementary, I thought. You reach the desired height of 12,000 feet, hurl yourself out of the aeroplane door and hope and pray that your parachute opens. Oh and of course, you make sure you're properly secured to the person with the parachute on his back. The Bridget Jones nightmare once again reared its ugly head.
But in truth, there's nothing to worry about. You're in good hands. It's a tandem jump so you're attached to a skilled instructor who has had the experience
of thousands of jumps behind him. You're simply there for the joy ride.
Some of the wannabes didn't find the idea of having their life handed over to a stranger's expertise with a few straps and harnesses as reassuring extras.
One girl turned a shade of green and tentatively put up her hand to ask (it ended up as a whisper): "If we're already in the plane and decide not to jump, can we get our money back?" Steve told her in no uncertain terms that if she tried to chicken out just before the jump when all the strings were tied, she'd have little say in the matter; he'd jump regardless while she was still attached.
She gulped. Trust me," he said, "You'll thank me when you hit the ground." I had to admit that "hitting the ground" seemed a rather poor choice of phrase to use around first-timers. The girl went a shade greener (and I later found out that she regurgitated her breakfast upon landing).
We were then shown how to position ourselves during the freefall. We lay on mats on the floor. I felt like I was in some kind of an improvised yoga class.
We were told to arch our backs as far as we could. The boys sniggered but when it was their turn to do so, better sense prevailed. I vouched that I would be one of the first two jumpers. I'd like to claim that this was bravery but it wasn't really – the Springboks were playing at 3pm
that afternoon.
We climbed to our destination altitude for about 20 minutes. The view alone made it worth all the agonising. You get a bird's eye view of a labyrinth of estuaries along the UAE coast on the one side and an undulating desert on the other – magnificent! Jim, my tandem partner, strapped me in. When he's not jumping out of aeroplanes he's a schoolteacher, so I wasn't worried – they're usually the most meticulous at sticking to details.
I vehemently hoped this stereotype held. My cameraman had a great time snapping away at what I later realised was my mortified face. Was I nervous? Of course I was. Imagine sitting on the floor of a matchbox plane with the door flung open and any minute having to jump.
For an instant I was struck by a bout of nostalgia of how my dad used to take me up in the helicopter as a four-year-old when he was culling for conservation in South Africa.
My mom would soothe her fluttering heart at the knowledge that the chopper had no doors. "Don't worry Les," my dad would yell as we climbed in the air, "she's fearless!" I would sit wedged between my dad and the pilot and my entourage of my four stuffed Ninja Turtles. My dad would lean out of the open door and my eyes would be as wide as saucers. On landing, my dad would ask me, "How was that, my girl?" to which I'd reply breathlessly, "Let's do that again!"
Here I was once more, eyes as big as saucers leaning out of the aeroplane door. I missed my Ninja Turtles.
Jim yelled, "Let's go!" and I went brain dead. Freud may have made one of his more lucid observations when he theorised that every human being has an innate death wish and a desire to 'return to the womb'. I wasn't in a return-to-the-womb state of mind right then. Let's just say that at that moment Freud could have been a Martian, his theory just as outlandish. I simply wanted to make it to the ground in one piece. But between me and the ground lay 12,000 feet of atmosphere.
My grin under the circumstances at the cameraman was exhilaration in its purest form. We hurled ourselves
out of the door and I felt like a cartoon character whose skin is being yanked from her face – a reasonably accurate description you will agree.
Tears streamed across my face as
I plummeted for the most adrenaline-injected 50 seconds I have ever known in my life.
The parachute opened and ... suddenly I was gliding and twisting like a leaf in the wind. The earth below me was also twisting, turning – it's as though I was squinting through
a fisheye lens. It's surreal, sensory, excessive, an overload and breathtaking, all at the same time. Wow!
Through the air, down the heights, towards the earth .... whooooooosh... a perfect landing. On my feet, feeling the ground solid under my shoes I glowed like a beacon as I punched the air. I gave Jim a high five. A big tick on my wish list.
"So what did you think of that?"
my cameraman asked. I looked straight into the camera and said:
"Let's do that again."
– Alex Westcott is Sub Editor, Friday
