July 26, 2003 FJC - I stay over at Angie's place and meet Eric at 6:40 or so for the drive down. We get to the DZ a few minutes before 8 - nobody there yet. The morning mist is pretty heavy, and it's cold. We envy the girls, who don't need to arrive until 11 or so. The nice thing about having a true hangar for an office is the wide open space. The catch is that this place cools down to the outside temp pretty easily so it's pretty cold in there. We start our class with Mike around 8:40 or so and get right to it. We get several hours of working through the gear, what can go wrong, and the best responses. Unlike the first jump I did back in 1995, we have hours to get amped up. Around 1:30 or so the class is over, and we're to keep looking over our dive plans until we're ready to go. Melinda and Jenny take off on their ride right as we're close to that point, so unfortunately we can't go watch them land. So we walk over to manifest and say we're ready to go. 'No, you can't go now, the winds have picked up past 14 knots. They need to be under that for 5 minutes straight, no gusts. Normally it's like this 12-4 in the summer.' Crap. So we're all ready to go, and now we're on hold. Time to go hit the bathroom yet again. The girls come back - they had a great jump - and now we need to figure out what to do. We decide we'll head out to Monterey for lunch and call back around 5:30. Come 5:30, winds are still up, and worse, the fog has taken over Marina. Monterey is fine, but viz has gone to nothing here. Game over. They'd like us to return the next day, but we have things to do. Plan to come back in two weeks. AFF 1 - We show up around 10 and they're ready and waiting. I guess we with 4 AFF instructors represents half a load or better, and so there wasn't much time to contemplate. Probably for the better. pause on exit away! missed first 2 pulls, got third. stable last 15 seconds, pull good, watched them rocket past me and canopy WHOA! eric's radio bad on flight, I think they're looking for me. flared too early, did good plf right at edge of field. Didn't recall or react quickly to wind to collapse my chute. Very steep approach into the wind. eric jetisons reserve PC. maybe wind advisory is good thing labor day - sit all day, no jumping. --- AFF 2- long diveplan, but mind adjusts to the jump much faster this time. No problems doing good right turn, ineffective forward motion, soso left turn. landing nice and soft, but can't stick it. touch down, fall backwards onto rear. Eric has IAD - how can such a thing happen? Watched him land in next field over. Manage good landing without radio - they were focused on him. But I went too far out past tarmac before last turn. AFF 3- Release! I feel much much lighter as Mike flies off in front of me. But at end I tighten up at pull time, end up rolling over to the right as I toss, causing a 180 line twist that immediately righted itself. Raff tells me in debrief I went hips/butt high right before to cause the effect. Probably a pass until I made that mistake. Another good landing, Eric hits the same stray field. ---- AFF 3-2- Felt good going to the door, and stayed nicely relaxed. Plenty of time to see the view, even to do a slight 20 degree turn for better ocean sight. Did not make a very visible wave off, but good steady throw and landing sequence. Raff and I are both happy. Legs still pointing down at ground, like hooks. Doing the toe taps, but still not understanding why I am. AFF 4 - I get too relaxed? on the 2nd jump of the day, though I was nervous when the door opened as there was only one post A7 student ahead of me, and I'm sitting right there. No buffer, or even Eric. It takes a long while to get stable - on the way out we nearly invert - I need to get my chin up on exit. apparently for the first time my legs are too far out, but I'm programmed to see those fingers out as meaning only one thing. (Raff or Mike had told me they had only had to give legs in sign a handful of times ever). Upon release, JM floats a ways off to my right - 20-25ft? Seems far far. Right 90degree turn a piece of cake. Forward....nothing happens, then unstable, then I'm tensing and chipping. Manage to relax and recover, decide to make left turn. JM points for COA - crap! I'm at 6k. This altimiter had the dial rotated 90degrees and where 9k is was 6k. I looked at it many times, but apparently without seeing it. I grab for my chute, miss, fumble, and then I sense the JM had done it. 3 seconds later the snatch comes pretty hard, with a bit of twisting. I'm ticked off for pretty much the entire descent. 5th jump and this one was the only time I lost track of where I was. Landing was fine, but the usual touch, sit, stand routine. I walked over and say thanks and sorry. In debrief Tom tells me that I first grabbed my leg, and then I grabbed his altimeter (the classic AFF move). This all happened in 500ft, but he decided to remove the variables in the equation, toss my chute, and move along. Without him there, I probably recover, but afterwards I'm thinking I need to review the plan of 2 tries and move on. ----- AFF 4-2 - Need to stay current! But not feeling too optimistic. Work has me exhausted too. Definitely the wrong state of mind. We get there and they're raring to go again. I think I want to just sit for a spell, but miss manifest and I could be sitting for hours, and so it's better to get going. Exit was probably better, but part of chin up meant looking up at the plane/sky. Exit stable, not exit, get stable. I'm trying to get my toes pointed behind me, but this leads to asymmetry. As Terry lets go, I immediate do a hard right turn, which I counter act to point right at him. Felt like a 90, but apparently more like a 180 ... he kept sliding over to watch. Now to go forward...nothing happens, then maybe I'm creeping to him. (no, later he confirmed he came back to me). Then I got hit with the hard asymmetry again and he quickly redocked to stabilize me as I fought to balance it again. At least this time I kept an eye on the altimeter and when it came time, I waved and pulled.