Yesterday was Awesome, but you won’t be happy with that as an explanation, so I’ll explain in more detail!
Tiffany & I had the support of Vanessa Märte, our friend whom we had also met at EIFF last year. She travelled from Germany to cheer us on & help me eat ice cream; someone’s got to do it! She has been such a fantastic support to us, I cannot thank her enough!
How lucky can you get with the weather? It was really hot with few clouds in the sky. We weren’t going to be turned away, yay! Thankfully being the first ones there, we were called up first to jump which was brilliant as I would hate to wait about all day…
We had agreed in advance that as this was my barmy idea, that I would jump first. However, as we both wanted the jumps to be filmed, we’d have to fly in separate planes, aghhhhh! Poor Tiffs decided that she would give up her filming so that we could fly in the same plane. Luckily the cameraman, Simon, was able to get good footage of Tiffs jumping and landing. Then we were told that Tiffs would have to jump first, but she handled it really well 🙂
After running through training, we had to get suited up and into the harnesses; I’m telling you now, those straps can never be tight enough! Actually, the harness gives you a bit of a sexy walk, but I digress 😀 Any sexy walk is offset by the tit-like hat that you have to wear. Tiffany got the ‘Top Gun’ stylee googles, which is only fair and just really; I got boring ones…. It was at this point that I gave my instructor a quick mental health assessment: Was he depressed, suicidal, been given his P45 or getting a divorce? Nope! Excellent, we can jump 😀
With Vanessa filming, we were led to the Cessna 206 aircraft and boarded. We had to sit on top of our instructors, who then buckled us to them, and had to lay down as there were no doors to the plane.
I can honestly say that take off in the little plane was one of the two scariest moments of the whole experience for me. It was juddering so much, I thought that we were running out of fuel! Poor Tiffs was looking pretty much as I felt too…
It took over 10 minutes to reach just over 10,000 feet (2 miles up), but when the instructors wanted to jump, it happened very quickly. One minute Tiffs was sat on the edge of the plane with her feet curled up underneath it & her instructor behind her; the next minute, they were gone! Then Ian Cessford, my instructor & I shuffled to the doorway.
I can’t describe the feeling of dropping out from the plane; all I could think was ‘I don’t want to do this again!’ The wind hurtling into your face as you face the ground and reach 200mph is incomparable. At first I think my eyes were shut, but when I opened them I realised that Simon the cameraman was opposite me, filming me. I suddenly felt so much calmer, that I was able to give a thumbs up & give an Oscar winning smile. Then Ian deployed the parachute (it freaking worked!) and handed me the straps so that I could manoeuvre the chute, whilst he unbuckled me and did other complicated things… On some sites that I’ve read up on, people say that it doesn’t feel like you are falling, and also that when the parachute is deployed, you don’t actually go shooting up into the air. They’re wrong, gravity is very real, & the sensation of the ‘lift feeling x 10’ is very real indeed! The views were amazing, and all was so quiet, I loved it at this point. A few minutes later, we came into land. Only after being in the air can you truly appreciate the beauty of a bunch of daisies in the grass where you land. Please, just take my word for it!
Both Tiffany and I were a bit shaky for the next hour, but were thrilled with our achievements (and also with our certificates!)
Again, we would like to thank everyone for their donations; we smashed our total for With Kids and am so overwhelmed by the generosity of all our friends 🙂
Robert Carlyle, do you know that it is because of you that I have achieved a lifetimes ambition? Nope, I didn’t think so; you’re too modest 🙂 Thank you so much for the retweets & mention (ahem, you tagged a different Tiffany & Emile in the post, but we found it funny! God knows what the other T & E thought!)
Thank you to Skydive St Andrews – Ian, Simon, Sandy and Gillian; we will be back! I have a new ultra expensive hobby!
You can see the video here – http://youtu.be/LL7YXzoY_co
Donations can be made via the link on my previous blog post!
Thank you! Emilie and Tiffany xxx
Lost in a Dream 