Kneeling at the open doorway of the plane attached to my instructor, Dunkeswell airfield and the rolling hills of southern Devon lay still fifteen thousand feet below, glowing in the early spring morning sunshine. Previous feelings of fear on take-off had subsided, to be replaced by a resolute inner quietness. Too late to turn back now! There was an awareness of falling forward and then a surging rush of air as we started to free fall. And then over the next few seconds, a surprising sense of elation coupled with a simple awareness of the body as if suspended and free. The actual free fall was sixty seconds but it felt much longer. When the parachute opened there was an enormous deceleration and then a wonderful quietness as we descended more slowly. To the east, the Isle of Wight shimmered in the far distance with the whole of Dorset in between. To the west, the Devon coast stretched to the horizon. The whole jump took less than five minutes but the intensity of the experience was such that it felt as though time had stood still.
I had watched my son, his fiancee and my wife do a similar jump over the Barrier Reef in Australia whilst on holiday last summer when I had decided not to accompany them for reasons which I struggled to articulate. Seeing their smiling faces afterwards made me determined to try the experience. It has left me with a deepened appreciation of the need to protect this thin atmosphere which sustains and protects life.