Day 2 of Mission 100

40 way Skydive Exits En Masse from Three Jump Planes

Two 40 way jumps from 3 planes were today’s dives. The best skydiving visuals of my life EVER (well, scratch that …. the Blue Hole is up on par with today’s jumps). With me being situated on the second pass of the left trail Otter, I was in a fabulous position to watch the right trail Otter floaters literally climbing out and hanging from the plane as the Sherpa 6 way base lined up in the door and exited with smooth fluidity. Watching a cascading flow of tiny people in the air with dazzling puffy clouds scattered across the sky made for a wicked experience that I will never forget. In between the clouds and jumping, there were a few weather holds where skydivers found time to entertain themselves. It’s kind of a hurry and wait sort of event where weather is concerned and involved quite a bit of plane choreography. The Sherpa was unable to fly out of Parachute Montreal’s grass strip because of the short length and the gravel capping either end of the grass runway, so several Twin Otters were needed to fly jumpers to a close-by paved municipal airport for loading before any formations could even consider taking off. Once the jumpers were jumpers loaded in the Sherpa at the alterante airstrip, the two Otters then flew back to Parachute Montreal so that the rest of the skydivers could be picked up and climb to altitude, finally reuniting in spectacular formation somewhere around 8,000 feet. It was an amazing dance, and surprisingly, I heard not a single complaint the entire week. That in itself was remarkable and heart-warming. Kudos to all the participants who upheld the team spirit, treasuring both the moments of success and the set-backs.