Lead me not into Temptation

Lead me not into Temptation.
I can find it myself.

Mission 100, Day 3.

We're released until 1:30 this afternoon because of low clouds. Before they turned us loose we all met in the barn for an oxygen briefing. That led to Brian and I coming up with a way to put the cylinder of helium to good use. We're going to slip it into the oxygen bottles so that when we do the high altitude jumps everybody will be talking like Donald Duck. The balloons that came with the cylinder won't go to waste, we'll turn them into water bombs for the party.

At 2:30 we were released until 3:30, and it started to rain.

At 3;30 we were released until 4:30, and the rain stopped.

At 4:30 we did a dirt dive, and put on standby, even though the clouds hadn't changed.

I'm wearing all the warm clothing I brought, and this event is starting to seem more and more like the Great Perris P3 Camp-out of 2011. It's almost the end of the third day, and so far we only have 6 jumps.

At 5:30, Cyr asked in his thick french accent if I knew what the codes on the screen of his Cypres Automatic Activation Device meant. It's what puts your reserve out for you if you're incapacitated. He said  that after it finished the countdown it went through when you turned it on, it was showing the code "1160". I pulled out my laptop and started a search that lasted the next 20 minutes. It ended when Cyr walked back up and said that once he had put his glasses on and turned the Cypres right side up, it said "0911'. Turns out that's the date the battery is due to be changed. That's 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back, but the day was a complete loss anyway.

A little after 6 we were called out to the field with suits and full gear. There was a large hole in the clouds coming our way, and they wanted us to be ready. But it was not to be. We were eventually released for the day when it was decided the sky gods simply weren't on our side, and that the promised hole in the cloud would not appear.

Debbie Lovegrove organized a bunch of us for dinner, making a reservation for 17 at a place in St. Esprit that came highly recommended by the DZ staff. Robert and I were the first ones there, and we walked into a tastefully decorated restaurant complete with white tablecloths and classical music playing. Hmmm. My first thought was that the ambiance was about to be shattered by a herd of frustrated skydivers with way too much energy to burn. Maybe we were in the wrong place. The hostess approached us and when we said we had a reservation she asked "Skydivers?" Well, she can't complain later that she wasn't warned. As the rest of the group descended upon the place they immediately began the ritual of rearranging most of the tables in the place to accommodate us. By the time dinner was over the racket had chased all the rest of the patrons to the other side of the restaurant that was separated from us by a stairway that acted as a sound barrier.

Everybody was in bed early to be ready for a 7:15 start on Thursday.