“I must no fear, fear is killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain” Frank Herbert.

Sunny again!! Yeap, today is the day. Breakfast and off we go to the NZone shop to pay (the visa card did not want to get out of my pocket) and for our briefing. We were quite a bunch of people, only 3 guys and about 15 girls, Girl Power!!

We signed the disclaimer ( if you are injured or killed, you cannot sue the company, and although they do everything to avoid this, shit happens) and watched the sample video. Then another tough decision for my friend visa. Do you want photos or a DVD with a video. Dani had it clear, no thanks, that is fine with the jump. But I was not sure, it would be cool to have the video, but the photos as well. Umm at 179 dollars each it was a little bit expensive, and that has to be added to the 299 that was the jump. Ummm, this is once in a lifetime, so go for the combo, and I will send some cool postcards and post the video for posterity.

After a 30 minutes drive, we arrived to the aerodrome and the girl in charge told us that dani, myself and Cloe ( a small french girl from Bretania) were to jump in approx 30 minutes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I was so so nervous, jumping up and down, looking around like a paranoid being followed by 1000 penguins, and dani cool, as if that was his normal routine. And then we heard a noise like a whistle and there he comes at 100km/hour, a guy just landed in no time. F_ _ _ , I am going to break my neck!! The girl in charged smiled and said not to worry as those were the cameramen who were enjoying the perfect weather conditions and doing crazy things like that. We were supposed to land much more slower and with our bottom on the grass. And yeap, we saw 3 tandems landing easily like that. After the terrible waiting, she came again to tell us to get prepared. Ahhhhhhh!! Inside the hangar, we got our Skydiving suit, helmet, googles and the arnes. My tandem dive master comes, ” Hi, I am JPO, how are you?” Ji, ji, scared to death, but fine and with a big smile. Cool. Dani’s dive master was not there, and Cloe and I were already all prepared, so we asked the girl and someone came to fix dani’s gear. His dive master arrived last minute, late for his first jump of the day, oupsssssssssss

All ready, we followed Cloe’s divemaster who gave us the 10 second briefing. Ok, you have to do the banana, that is, your legs up and your head backwards looking for the camera man, take your arnes with your hands when you jump and wait until we touch you to release them. That is it? I asked. Yeaaaah. Ok, fine. And off to the tiny tiny plane, taking off from a cow field. The tiny plane had place for 8 guys sitting on the floor and with approx 3 cm of free space around us, like sardines in a tin. 15 minutes of flight with an incredible view, and some instructions from our masters. JPO had jumped 12000 times, and I had to ask him if he had double check the parachute. Not to worry, so far the previous time it worked fine. We started to get prepared, the helmet, the goggles, the gloves. Then he attached us together from 4 different points. Last minute instructions and the red that was red, turned to green. JPO showed me his watch that said 12, so supposed it was the time.Dani was the first to jump and in no time, the door was open and he was hanging out of the plane. I did not have time to say anything, he was out, my cameraman was on the aisle of the plane waiting for my scary face and JPO was pushing me to the door. Ahhhhhhhhh. And there I was, hanging to the void, and off we went. Huge scream of terror, turning up and down, I see the ground, the plane, the mountains, the lake, the plane again, blue…

It is an amazing experience, fear and happiness, purity and empty space, total freedom and adrenaline. JPO touches my shoulder, so I can open my arms. Obviously I forgot to look up for the cameraman, just looking around to the amazing space around me at 200km/h, the scenery is impossible to beat. And then 10 seconds of photos, and video, pulling funny faces and trying to move your arms around, which is extremely difficult. You can feel the air entering directly to your lungs, and you do not know if you should breath through your nose or your mouth, your cheeks moving with the air. After 45 seconds of free fall and without further notice a big tiron (look it up in the dictionary), scream as I though that it was the end of my life until I realized that JPO had opened the parachute. Ufffffffff, that is better. And then slower motion, we started a nice 5 minutes conversation about the mountains: the Remarkables to your right, Mount Aspiring in front of you, no you cannot see from here Mount Cook. Conversation turned to dani, who was just below us, aahh, your boyfriend there, or is it your husband. No just boyfriend but for over 10 years. Ouau, and he has still not proposed? No, we are not interested, we are fine this way. Ok, so do you feel like rollercoasting? Shall I do a few turns? Ok I said, try and see. And he turned to the right, ouuuuuuuuuu, and then to the left, ouuuuuuuuuuuuu. He said, you are brave!! Ha Ha, Shit not I am damned scared I though, but it was fun. So he continued and then he said, now your boyfriend is up there. Ahhhhhh. When approaching the ground you have to put your legs up, so we land easily ok? Yes, you tell me when, right? Sure we still have couple of minutes, enjoy the view. Ok, now we are going to land, that is the cameraman, so just by his side, put your legs up. And apparently they were so up, that he decided not to land on our bottoms, but on our feet, what was cool. Big smile for cameraman, and brilliant fantastic answer to the how was it?

After the brilliant jump and with the tummy completely upside down, we went to have a walk by the lake, it was warm and beautiful. By the pier 19, there is a park and because is Sunday, there were posts with arts and crafts. And two korean girls giving shiatsu massage, yupie!! I go for one, I need it. So 20 minutes of massage listening to live music, pink floid version of the Wall. Fantastic.

Then walk through the Queens gardens and back to the main street. Had lunch in the KFC terrace listening to the pre-San Patricks day from the Irish pub in front. And it was time to collect my photos and DVD. So here you have a couple of them. Before and during. We went to put some more clothes on, take the laptop and go
back to the beach where a DJ was mixing chill out music. And that was the perfect sunset and brilliant place to write this post.