Mission

Skydiving mission on Wednesday? – when Marius says that, it is always worth your attention.

When do we leave?, – I ask. I do not need to know anything more 🙂

Aha. I’m listening, – I already have a feeling how this is gonna end.

And so we are off to another skydiving mission.

So 3.45 in the morning I start my car down the mountain where I live for now. Marius is picking me up at the bottom. I drive the bloody mountain in complete darkness, first gear for half an hour. But that is the easy part of the morning 😃

First, we go and check the landing spot. It is still dark and raining. The bridge looks like a huge ghost in the dark. I mean really huge. Boys are smoking cigarettes and silently looking up. I go around checking lenses and angles. Everything in silence. We see some gap in between the rain clouds. Would be nice to make the jump while it’s not raining…

Time to drive up the bridge and leave the main hero of our skydiving mission there. It is actually a highway. A loooooot of cars are driving through even though it is so early in the morning. As if it was not enough of adrenaline 😀

We leave Marius to wait next to the bridge while I and his brother drive down again to the landing spot. I miss the exit out of the highway and have to drive around through the small mountain road. Marius is waiting. I never had sea sickness before, but now for some reason, I felt nauseous. It is really time to jump. It is getting light and the car traffic on the bridge is rapidly increasing. Finally, we are in the place. I turn the car around, leave the keys inside for the fast exit 🙂 and run to my chosen spot with the camera.

And there we stand. Two of us. Matas waiting for his brother to jump from the bridge. Visibly getting older 😀 Me waiting for the right moment to push the button. Somehow when I am behind the camera, all emotions disappear – there’s only the perfect moment for the shot. Don’t get me wrong, I always worry about my extraordinary friends who are doing extraordinary stuff, but it is more about the trust and good thoughts that I send to them while capturing their success.

And he jumps.

Screams. Something in his own language. Too high up to understand.

The sound of the parachute opening.

Oh shit! – coming from Matas.

Strange turn.

And suddenly he is on the ground screaming from joy.

I live for mornings like this 😀