🚀 go-pugleaf

Unfair! Unfair!

Picking on us poor skydivers in the height of summer.
Sneaking up to close our newsgroup while we're out jumping
and having adventures to write to the net about during
the long winter months.

Night Dives!

Got any good night dive stories out there ?  Great things seem
to happen in the roaring dark - that never get to happen in the
daytime.

I'll never forget the night of my NSCR.  Eight of us in a
twin Beech at Eustice Florida (A pretty DZ with lots of
green grass).  The moon was large on the horizon and we were
very mellow after a good day's dives.

At 12500' I followed the other lightsticks out the door.
I stabilized and swooped for the fireflies below. I dived
and dived, they got bigger and bigger,  Oh oh ... I'm
too hot!  I flared and flared - too late - I passed through
the cloud of fireflies!  I didn't feel a thing.  It wasn't too
bad after all, I was only 6 feet low.  I dead spidered up
to a slot etched in black against a high moonlit overcast
and docked 5th.  I peeked at my altimaster, the lightstick
on my helmet lit its dial  - 7 grand WOW! plenty of time.

I counted around the circle, 6, two still out, 7 docked beside me,
one still out. A firefly skidded around us and started in toward
its slot.  Too low!  just a foot out of reach.  We tucked up until
number 8 reached wrists, and entered our circle at 5,000'
Yahooooo...  All in! NSCR's all round.  We screamed and yahooed
and kicked our feet for 2,000 feet.  We broke at 3 and dumped 
at 2.  I could see the colours of my Unit in the moonlight.
Other canopies glided around me like ghosts.

We were a long way off the spot.  I judged my height by the
town lights in the distance and guessed a flare, ahh....
an easy tippytoe landing.  We assembled for a head count - 7.
Bill, the last to dock, had cutaway his Cruislite.  We
helped him look for it.  He had attached his lightstick to
the riser, so we thought we had a good chance of finding it.
After 20 min stumbling around, somebody tripped over the canopy.
The lightstick was underneath the washing.

Back at the DZ we bagged our gear, stashed our lightsticks
in the freezer, and piled into Terry's van "Captain Heinmeyer"
for a tour of the Eustice bars.

Any other night dive stories out there ?  If noboddy comes
forth, I threaten to post another one.

			Black skies!

-- 
				
Made in New Zealand -->		Brent Callaghan
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