Robin Sieger Blog

I decided over the Easter Weekend to go to Spain to get some coaching from the current world champion skydivers, who are based in a small town called Empuriabrava. I also took some work, (a new book that has to be finished by the end of April) and looked forward to a relaxing time. What I had not anticipated was that Spain was experiencing a prolonged period of unseasonably bad weather.

A low pressure ridge simply sat on top of Spain, which meant low cloud, rain and strong winds, none of which are conducive to skydiving. Generally speaking it is better to see the ground from the aircraft, even though Global Position Navigation technology means the pilot will drop us at exactly the right spot, we often jump above, or even in the cloud.

The weather though caused the clouds to be lower and thicker than normal, which resulted in the drop zone suspending flights until the weather improved. During a break in the weather I got a 15 minute call to get kitted up and board the aircraft with my instructor. We boarded the aircraft and off we went into the wild blue yonder, except that it wasn’t too blue. We went into cloud and it got a little bumpy, we got through the cloud, then went into more cloud. At about 6000 feet, halfway to exit altitude, the pilot after speaking to the ground crew decided it was too risky for the jumpers to land in the winds which were picking up on the ground, as well as the increased clouds which were getting lower in the sky. This meant you may be opening your parachute in a cloud, which due to the limited visibility and the risk of collision with another canopy makes it potentially a very dangerous situation.

So we flew around and around, I wondered what was going on and when I asked my instructor “Are we going to get down?” he laughed and said “I’ve never seen one stay up yet, they always get back to earth” which in the tense situation broke the ice.

We landed and the weather closed in for three days, so no more jumping. Many of the jumpers on the aircraft complained saying they would have been happy to jump, and the ground crew were being too cautious. I figured they do this day in and day out for a living, they are the experts. I had no complaints. Sometimes we need to listen to the experts, and accept their wisdom outweighs our egos.

The above picture was taken on the last day, on my back at 8000 feet over the town of Empuriabrava, and as you can see still some clouds.

Blue skies!

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