Thank you for the thoughts of bad weather - it seems to have worked. It's been a lovely day today.

I didn't pass a stage today although I did jump. I was jumping with Keith and he felt that as it's been over two weeks since my last jump and that on the last few jumps I'd been very tense, he wanted to just jump with me to try and get me back to how I was to start with. Apparently, on the first few jumps I did I was really relaxed during freefall with a good body position. Lately I've been getting very tense and stiff. It was fine by me as it's still another jump that counts towards my 'A' license and it doesn't cost as much as trying a stage. The way I look at it is that it's better to do this with Keith now so that next time I try stage six I'm relaxed enough to pass, rather than keep trying stage six (at the full price) and keep failing.

We got out to the DZ at about 10:30. Unfortunatley, Damon has injured himself falling off his mountain bike, so that only left Keith and Brendan as instructors. Tobi went up first as he needs two instructors for stage one. He did his jump and passed. Brendan has been suffering with a cold for a few days and after doing Tobi's jump he didn't feel well enough to jump again, so poor Tobi has to wait for tomorrow to do his stage two.

I went up in the afternoon and the waiting was awful. Keith explained what he wanted to do and I said that was fine with me. It was just me and Keith in the plane. We took off and I'm thinking to myself "I'll never do another jump again"! There is a red light at the back of the aircraft compartment that the pilot lights up when you are one minute away from the drop point. Then, all too quickly, the green light comes on and Keith opens the door. That's when I really feel bad. Keith climbs out onto the wing and signals for me to get to the door. I move to the door and swivel round so that I'm facing the right way. I look at Keith, who is on my left, and say "OK". Keith has decided we're going to do a linked exit, and believe me, that's more than fine with me. "OK" he says back and I look forward and do the UP, DOWN and step out. I have to admit my up and down weren't the most positive I've ever done. I probably only moved up about four inches!

We're out. Keith is holding on to me on my left side. I forget to take the two deep breaths. Hang on, I'm not tipping right back. I try to relax and get a good arch position. I'm tipping forward and I can see the clouds above reeling around. I'm stable. I check my height. I can still think! Keith wanted me to pick an object on the horizon, something like a mountain or group of buildings and then keep that as my heading which means that I just need to turn to keep whatever I've chosen in front of me. I can see a big hill on my right so try to turn to face it. It doesn't seem to work. I arch, check my height and try to turn again. I'm still drifting round to my left. Bugger this, I'll pick something else to aim for - something on my left as that seems to be where I'm heading! There is a large group of buildings I can see - that'll do. This is better as I do seem to be able to keep it in front of me. I keep checking my height. I'm definately aware of my height from 8,000 feet onwards. I start to wobble and go unstable. **** this! I just take some really deep breaths and try to relax my whole body. Much better. I'm keeping a close watch on my height and as I approach 5,000 I do two hand flashes. It seems to take ages to get down to 4,000 and as I approach that height I move to deploy the chute. I try to stay aware of what my legs are doing so that I don't tip forward. I grab the handle of the pilot chute and pull it out, move my hand forward and then release the pilot chute. Keith has stayed holding me for the entire dive but now I feel him give me a huge shove. It seems to take much longer than normal from letting go of the pilot chute to feeling the tug of the canopy opening.

The canopy has opened and I'm good. Sam (camera man) is on the ground with the radio. He lets me do most of the flight down on my own and I have quite a nice landing in the PLA not too far away from the spot I was aiming for.

Keith is waiting for me back in the hangar. He seems really pleased and shakes my hand. I talk him through what I remember and he says that he thought it was really good. My exit, while not perfect, is a lot better than the last few I've done. I was a bit tense at the top of the dive but then seemed to settle down. I was falling very slowly and he was having difficulty staying with me (he's bigger and heavier than I am) and that was what was making it difficult for me to turn to my right. He was on my left and the extra drag he was creating was tending to pull me that way. He could see that I was staying very well aware of my height all through the dive. Half way down he said I seemed to settle much better and got a better body position. He also said that the body position I had during the deploy was just about perfect and I had a really good arch. That's what I need to be doing for the whole dive. He said the reason it seemed to take a long time to go from 5,000 to 4,000 and why I thought that it took longer for the canopy to open once I'd let go of the pilot chute was that I'm getting used to it and my brain is able to deal with it better.

Keith wants to do the same thing again tomorrow. Yes, I must admit that ideally I'd like to try stage six again and then move on, but if this is what I need to do then I'm quite happy to do it. Every jump is a jump that counts towards my license and it's all experience. Hopefully I'll soon get back to the relaxed state I had to start with and then the rest of the stages of the course shouldn't be too difficult.

We're planning to jump tomorrow. Brendan is hoping he'll feel well enough to jump so Tobi should get at least a couple of jumps in. I should do at least one, we'll just have to see how it goes.

My log book has finally turned up! Luckilly, I've had these emails to remind me of what happened on each jump and I've been writing a short version of each jump in a notebook. I showed Keith the notes and he says I can just write those into my log book and he'll sign them off. Also, it turns out that my tandem jump at Queenstown counts as a freefall jump towards my license! So, I've done ten jumps in Rotorua now and the tandem makes eleven in total.

I'll let you know how it all goes tomorrow.

Cheers,
Ian.