On the second last jump Sunday Deanna caught her ankle while landing and suffered a hairline fracture of her tibia. There were a few unfair remarks made about women skydivers and landings, exclusively made by women skydivers of course, and even more comments made about landings being complicated by the fact that with an artificially enhanced DD chest not only is your balance compromised but your view of the ground is obscured. When signing the cast I was tempted to write "After consulting with the other judges I have decided to award First Prize to the woman with the Biggest Tits", but since I was sober I wimped out and went the usual "Get well soon! (And beneath it drew a picture of Kilroy looking over the fence, with great big t*ts!)
My day went better than Deanna's, but that's only because I didn't break any bones. I went low on 2 jumps, which I haven't done for a couple of years, and arrived last on 2 others. If I had been a second or two faster on the second one we'd have completed a very difficult and cool formation. Nobody gave me shit after the landing but I wouldn't have blamed them if they did.
When we were geared up and dirt diving the last jump of the day, at the edge of the landing area there was a special surprise waiting for a young lady coming down to land after her tandem ride. Her boyfriend had landed before her, and all their friends and family were lined up behind a banner reading "Will you Marry Me?" with her boyfriend was in the middle of the landing area on bent knee, holding a ring. She was so excited by the tandem ride she didn't notice the boyfriend on his knee, or the banner, but she did notice the ring. I was reminded of the video that Derek had shown me a few weeks ago of him proposing to Kat in front of a stadium full of people after a demo jump. And just what the heck are you going to do if she says "No Thank You?!?!
Day 4:
We met in the hangar at 7:30, the latest start we've had. The first thing everybody did was check the huge poster showing the planned formation with the slot assignments. Everybody was caught off guard by the Formation Fake out that had been tossed at us. The plan on the board wasn't even close to the one that had been on the shirts. Just as well, the one we were going to attempt had 70% of the jumpers looking away from the center, meaning they had no reference to what was happening on the rest of the formation. Usually the plan calls for most of the people to be looking inwards so they can match fall rate etc. Well, the event is called the "Arizona Challenge', not the "Arizona Easy" It may have been planned that way from the beginning but there was a lot of speculation about the plan having been changed to make it easier because of problems we'd had on the earlier jumps. It made little difference to me, I figured the chances of our completing either formation were between Slim and None, and Slim was visiting Alberta. Here's our final plan:
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At least I had a fairly simple slot, I was diving out of the lead plane and docking on the base. My slot is labelled B10, just above and to the right of center. Celine was beside me in B12, Remi was beside her in C9, we were the Canadian Compressed. Celine was speculating about whether we'd been given a slot of great responsibility because of our proven skill, or if we'd been given easy slots because we hadn't been doing well. I hadn't made my slot on 4 jumps the day before so I had a pretty good idea which one I thought applied, but kept my thoughts to myself. Beth was second last diver coming out of her plane, and right behind her, docking next to her, was............ Kate Cooper. Beth doesn't scare easy, but when she saw where she was coming from and where she was going to, and who would be following her, she was somewhat, tense. You could wind up with a lot of people looking over your shoulder, but Kate has a well deserved reputation for being particularly direct and merciless in her critiques. Don't get me wrong, she's invariably dead on target, but she doesn't waste any time or effort being diplomatic about it.
There was one good thing about my slot though. Our airplane was a Shorts Skyvan. In a Skyvan due to weight and balance considerations they divide the jumpers into 2 groups. One group is the base, they stand on the tailgate and leave together as a chunk. Their exit count is "Ready, Set, Go!" On "Ready" Mark gives a big head nod, on "Set" the 8 way chunk bends their knees and drops down to gather some energy so that when Mark shouts "Go!", they simply do a little hop, and disappear out the back of the plane. I'm in the second group. We're all behind a line halfway up the plane. That's necessary to keep the weight properly balanced, and keep the plane from stalling.. My group is in 2 files of 5 people each, with me at the front of one line, and Curt (made famous when I draped a well lubricated Sandy Kirkby over his shoulders just before her husband Mark came to fetch her from the bar at the Airspeed Invitational event in February) is beside me at the head of the other line. When Mark nods "Ready!", we tense up, ready to explode into a sprint towards the tail when the other group drops down on "Set!", then sprint in a pack towards the door to fling ourselves out literally on the heels of the first group. I love that slot and rarely get to exit from it.
The plan calls for 5 jumps today, I really really really hope we get this done, I've wanted to see myself in the picture of the completed formation of this event for a decade
One more post to come for this event, I should be finished in a day or so)
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