Swakopmund

Today we arrived in the coastal town of Swakopmund. It is an interesting town as it has sand dunes on one side of the town and the sea on the other side. When we arrived at our lodge the receptionist showed us a video explaining all the activities we could do. Some of the options were a dolphin cruise, sandboarding and quad biking. However Swakopmund is best known for skydiving due to the scenery.

I have been tempted to doing a skydive for a while but I wasn't sure I would be able to go through with it. There was another girl in our group, Courtney, who was interested in doing the skydive which made it easier to say "let's do it". An hour after arriving, we were collected by a minibus and drove to the local airport. When we arrived the instructors went through the safety instructions before we were fit with our safety harness. There were ten people in total doing the skydive that day. Courtney and I were booked onto the third plane load. We saw as the first two groups lifted off and then spotted their parachutes landing. Each jumper had a tandem partner and a separate instructor who was taking a video and photos. It was fascinating watching as the instructors landed and then collected their next parachute bags to head off in the plane again for another skydive. Then it was our turn to go!

My instructor/tandem partner checked my harness again before we got into the plane. Then we climbed into the small plane. It was scary as the plane lifted off the ground into the sky. After a few deep breaths I was able to look out at the desert and ocean scenery below. One thing I remember was my tandem partner and video instructor talking about what was for their dinners while I was trying to remember to breathe.

After a few minutes we got the signal that we were five miles out from the jump zone. My tandem partner connected our harness together and told me "let's go have fun". The doors opened and my video instructor went out the door first hanging onto the plane awaiting us. We moved over to the edge of the door. I held onto the straps on my harness for dear life although in hindsight that wasn't going to help me much. My tandem partner sat at the door edge while I hung with my feet under the plane. I didn't dare look down so instead I looked straight out onto the horizon. On the count of three we fell out the door of the plane free falling.

After a second or two I remember getting a shoulder tap to say I can release my hands from the harness and spread them out wide. I spotted the video instructor smiling at me to say "give thumbs up" and I remember thinking great everything must be ok. The free fall was for 35 seconds and then my tandem partner released our parachute. It is very hard to explain the sensation of the free fall and I am not sure I was expecting the variety of emotions I was feeling as we fell. After the parachute was released my tandem instructor asked me how was it but I couldn't verbalise how I was feeling. It was a mixture of madness, shock, relief, fear and thrill.

I was surprised by how high up we were when the parachute was released as it seemed like a long way to get to the ground. As we parachuted to the ground my tandem instructor pointed out to me the different locations below such as the sand dunes, the mountains, airport and the beach. It was only then that I relaxed and enjoy the scenery around me. Once at the bottom I rejoined Courtney for a debrief. That debrief lasted all evening as we tried to put into words how the skydive experience was for us both. We were glad to have someone else to try and process all the emotions we felt with.

The following day as the rest of our group did their own activities Courtney and myself took it easy as we needed a well deserved rest after the exciting previous day skydiving.

When I reflect on the skydive I feel the whole experience was surreal. My biggest fear before the skydive was how I would feel hanging over the edge of the plane however I was surprised and grateful that we didn't have a long time waiting at the edge of the plane to build up that fear. The freefall was a cool sensation that was over quicker than expected. I am not sure if I will ever do a skydive again but I am glad to be able to say I did it in Namibia.もっと詳しく