Yesterday (Saturday 26th June, 2004) was a very busy day. We had fantastic weather all day: sunny, almost no wind and enough cloud to make it fun. Kieth is still away so Sol has been in charge and we also had a load of people turn up to do Tandems. I was up early and got a lift in with Justin and was jumping by 10am.

1. Solo

2. Solo

3. AFF Stage Seven - PASSED.

4. AFF Stage Eight - PASSED.

5. AFF Stage Nine (hop and pop from 5,000ft) - PASSED.

6. First solo jump as a non-student!!!!!!!

I passed AFF!!!!!!! I now only need to do one more jump to get my 'A' License.

After the DZ shut down, we went and got some sausages and had a BBQ in the hangar. I didn't stay out too late as I was pretty drunk on the excitement of the day, so I didn't need to drink a lot.

I'm still in shock I think. I had a glorious day jumping. Every jump was fun. I've seen myself exit on video twice now. My dive exits are getting pretty good - the guys in the plane who saw my first jump of the day said the exit was brilliant. It felt brilliant too - sit in the door and OUT, IN, JUMP and I felt like I was flying straight out from the door and hovering in the air. I was stable within a couple of seconds and it felt awesome. On a couple of the dives I started to fall into cloud at just above 5,000 and deployed whilst I was inside the cloud - awesome.

I've watched someone jump out before me and not freaked out. I've sat in the door and looked down at the ground before jumping and not freaked out. I've been on my back mid-dive and not freaked out. I've been cleared off radio and been completely on my own flying the canopy and not freaked out.

I've done backloops and tracking. Tracking is like something out of a James Bond opening sequence: you straighten your legs and bring your arms in by your sides with palms pointing down so you're in a sort of Delta shape, and then you shoot off forwards and track accross the sky! This is flying and it's awesome.

I was nervous on every jump but that dreadful fear has gone and it's such a relief. It's actually so much fun now and it's just how I'd hoped it would be. I've still got so much to learn - it's a bit like learning to drive: first you learn to pass the test and then you learn how to drive for real. The guys at the DZ are really enthusiastic. They're talking about teaching me to do two way exits (linked exit with another skydiver so that you jump in formation) and doing two, three and four-way formation dives. Matt wants to do a "horny gorilla" with me which is where you exit with one foot each linked together and then when you're out in the air you're facing each other and can spin around the axis of your linked feet.

The weather today has come in bad again so I won't be able to do my 25th jump to get my license today. Hopefull it won't be too long before I can jump again.

I'll send another email soon with the details of yesterday's jumps as soon as I calm down enough to think straight. Thank you to everyone who's given me their support and encouragemnt - it's meant a lot to me.

Cheers, Ian.