PHOTO-A-DAY CHALLENGE

Between Sunset Jumps and Paddling in the Water

Week 102 of the photographic documentary of my daily life

It is hot. And it was brutal today. At the peak of the day, we had 40ºC (105ºF) in the shade. And yes, I am still in Germany. This is just insane. Especially since I had to work all day. Outdoors.

Right now, it has cooled down. We only have 31ºC (85ºF) at 11 pm. Only.

But what a week I had. Let’s start at the beginning.

Scenic views from above.

This is the city of Neuruppin and the lake Ruppiner See you can see in the distance. It is not a river, it’s a long stretched lake where swans are home and ducks are hiding in the reeds.

Being in northern Germany, 200 kilometers away from the ocean but only 30 meters above sea level, this is a flat country. A landscape made for wind turbines. See below.

I’m sharing a cat pic in memory of Emerson, Erika’s beloved furry baby that happened to be a victim of negligence. Negligence of a friend and cat sitter.

Our cat living free on the airfield is lucky to live in an environment without needing to fear predators. In fact, she’s the predator in sight. Every morning she greets another staff member with a mouse in her mouth, trying to teach us all how to hunt…

She’s a smart one. Despite knowing how to look after herself, she still roams around between the trailer begging for food. Here, she is waiting for my husband to give her a slice of salami.

On Saturday, I was working on a response for the writing prompt on the topic of “souvenirs”. I have collected many things over the years and have brought countless souvenirs back home.

The moment I became some kind of a modern-day Nomad, things changed in terms of I only have space as much as fits into my bag.

One of the new collections I’ve picked up during my time in Africa is bracelets. And not just any bracelets. Bracelets I wear day in and out and never take off.

In order to show my current collection of bracelets, I stepped outside of the trailer and took a picture of my left hand. Right in front of that infamous lavender bush. If you look closely, you can spot a white dot on it.

Yes, it is a butterfly.

I told you. There are always butterflies on this little bush.

Sunday was a busy day. In fact, it was the busiest we had this season. I ended up doing 13 skydives which is my record.

Of course, I didn’t take any pictures for this challenge, but I took more than enough photographs at work and a few of them fit the challenge.

The first two pictures would go nicely with the shadow prompt we had going on a while ago. I took these two photographs just after take-off. Just past lunchtime, the sun stands perfectly in the sky and I can film the plane’s shadow.

Later that day we had 7 students who were ready to be taken up on their first ever skydive. The last load of the day was rather late, and we had to make sure we would still make it before sunset.

But that jump was amazing. While the student probably didn’t experience much of the special moment, I truly enjoyed the colors in the sky and the setting sun.

After the student opened his parachute, I turned away to get distance from the other instructor before opening my own. That was when I took the second picture below. A camera mounted on my chest captured my face and the setting sun.

And after opening my parachute, I turned once more towards the sun to capture the beauty of the moment.

In the photograph below, you can see it was already quite dark, but the sun was still above the horizon. What a great way to finish a special day at work.

Monday. Our off day. And while we surely should have been exhausted from a long week at work, we had some plans for the day.

Late in the afternoon we packed the cooler box with a picnic and lots of water and headed out on the canals surrounding the town of Fehrbellin.

Previously, we had been a handful of times out on those canals but never had completed the round. Today was the day.

It took us 4 hours to finish the round trip, and we were really tired in the end but it was an amazing trip. More about it I will share in a separate post.

I had just put my parachute onto the ground while chatting to a former student of mine who had gotten her skydiving license when that butterfly flew past us.

I ignored the girl as soon as I saw the butterfly, followed it with my eyes, turned away to fetch my husband’s phone, and snapped this picture of the beautiful butterfly sitting on my chest-mounted camera equipment.

And today was the day I melted away at work. Yes, we had 40ºC and I’m still suffering. Sitting in front of the laptop with the fan blowing in my face. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep tonight if it doesn’t get any cooler.

I had a long day at work with lots of tandem customers and students waiting to be taken to the skies.

This picture below I took on the last jump of the day where I was filming a tandem pair in the sky. The white thing you see hanging above the tandem pair is, in fact, a drogue, as we call it, and it slows us down to an average speed of 200kph.

This little inflated chute prevents us from reaching terminal velocity (around 300kph) and therefore guarantees softer openings of the parachute.

But I don’t want to get too technical, just sharing some information with my friends on Medium who love following my journey in the sky.

This has been my week in photographs. 7 days. 7 photographs. Anyone can join. Once. Or weekly. It doesn’t matter. We welcome everyone! Dennett started this photography challenge in 2020 and many have participated ever since.

Erika / Eileen / K. Barrett / Juan / David / Mia / Susan / LensAfield / Kim / Barbara / Diana / Barb / Sandra / Shruthi / Ellie / Pene / Olive / Gustavo / Jane / Penny / Jillian

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