ANCIENT RITE OF PASSAGE

           When facing death, looking cool is very important.  Looking out at the surrounding forest, I see the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the distance, and the gently moving Nanaimo River below me.  What could possibly be more peaceful? Standing on the edge of a gang-plank with my ankles bound tightly together, looking down at the river 147 feet below kind of detracted from that sense of peace.  Looking cool was becoming more difficult.

            Shirley and I spent five days touring Vancouver Island; visiting friends, seeing the sites and just enjoying the break from daily life.  Bungy jumping hadn't been a specific 'must do' bucket list item for me, but passing through Nanaimo, BC, I saw the sign advertising the Wild Play’s adventure park, so we stopped in to check it out. Their website advertises nineteen ziplines, sixty-seven aerial games, forty foot jump, one hundred and fifty foot bungy jump, and a one hundred and fifty foot giant swing.  Something for everyone!

            I have to hand it to Shirley.  She did the first three of the four progressively more difficult levels in the obstacle course; a jungle gym of climbing, log ladders, ziplines, cargo nets, and wobbly bridges just to name a few of the tree to tree activities about fifty feet off the ground.  She even did the zip line over the canyon….but she drew the line at Bungy jumping.

             I read and signed the obligatory consent and liability forms and paid the nice lady at the kiosk for the privilege of risking my life, and for the video that would be taken to either commemorate the event, or become an exhibit of the Coroner's Inquest.

            “You have to step on the scale,” she directed. “They'll need to know your weight to adjust the bungys,” she explained.  “Strange as this may sound, some people actually lie about their weight.”

            I obliged this intrusion into one of my most closely-held secrets. She then wrote my weight in marker on my hand to ensure there'd be no mistake.

            “Just follow the path to the stairs,” she pointed.  “The guys will greet you on the bridge.”

            On the walk to the bridge, I watched a jumper dive off of the platform, the crowd of spectators along the fence whooping loudly.  The bungy streamed behind him as he disappeared out of sight into the gorge.  I emptied out my pockets, handing everything to Shirley before ascending the long stairway of the trestle bridge spanning the Nanaimo River canyon by myself.

            Up on the main bridge deck, the crew laid out the bungys so that they would play out freely when needed.

            “Have you ever done this before?” asked the young man who seemed to be in charge.

            “Never.”

            “You’ll love it,” he promised.  “Do you want to get wet?”

            I hadn’t really thought about it, but since I was wearing jeans, I said “Maybe dunk my head.  Just enough to get my hair wet.”

            “We’ll do the best we can,” he said.  “It's not an exact science.”

            Another member of their team adjusted the bungy according to my weight and my desired experience.  I moved closer to the railing, allowing one of them to bind my feet together.

            “I work in safety,” I told them.  “I just have a few questions…”

            I went through everything I could think of.  Tell me how you’re trained.  How often is your equipment inspected?  Does you inspection have specific pass-fail criteria?  When was the last time there was an injury related to this activity?

            To my satisfaction (or dismay, I'm really not sure which...), they answered every question with textbook perfection.  I had no excuse to back out.

            I looked down at the water.  “How deep is it?”

            “The water’s about 22 feet deep,” they assured me.  “No chance of bottoming out.  Just take your time and go when you're ready.  Just remember before you hit the water to put your hands out in front of you like you're diving to break the water.”

            “Gotcha.”

             I stood at the edge, holding on tightly to the railing as I looked down at the water 150 feet below. One thought kept running through my head.

            “What the %$#@ am I doing here?”

            I kept telling myself to relax and just do it.  Shirley watched from the edge of the canyon (safety behind a fence I might add), and three staff members waited patiently behind me.

            “Take the leap!” I thought.  Getting my body to cooperate and muscles to actually move is another thing altogether.  Seconds seemed like an eternity.  I looked down again, and off to the side, the guy in the raft waiting to recover me (dead or alive) watched.  Thoughts of perfect form long forgotten, I couldn’t bring myself to jump, dive, or even step off the gang-plank. I couldn't move forward, but I wasn’t going back either.

            I fixed my gaze straight ahead, focusing on a spot in the distance.  Then, I started slowly leaning forward, daring gravity to take me.

            You may have seen videos of people bungy jumping, or diving off the high board.  The concentration, the springboard leap off of the edge, body arched and arms straight out in a perfect swan dive position, hands joining to cleanly slice the water, judges awarding full points while the crowd erupts in thunderous applause.  That wasn’t me.

            My body ruler-straight, gravity indeed took over, pulling me earthward.  That's the way I remember it anyway.  The video (which I'm certain was doctored by some nefarious organization before I picked it up ten minutes later) shows my legs kind of collapsing and folding beneath me as I fell off the platform.

            You will recall that I was given a specific set of instructions prior to leaving the platform.  Now, when you're in free-fall, flailing in terror, a lot of things go through your mind in a very short time. “Put your hands out in front of you to break the water,” should have been one of them, but it wasn’t. I felt a vague sensation of deceleration, and my body straightened as the bungy pulled gently on my ankles. I hit the water, exiting quickly as the bungy yanked me back into the air.

            The video shows me ascending back the way I came, about a hundred and twenty feet straight up, my arms again flailing for stability before falling again, then bouncing up and down a few more times, before finally stretching my arms out to my sides.  At least my last seconds had some semblance of style as I dangled above the water, gently swinging back and forth.

            The gents on the bridge lowered the bungy, and the man in the raft pushed off from the canyon's edge, holding up a long pole for me to grab on to.  He then guided me down and into the raft and freed me from the ankle restraint before depositing me on shore where I climbed the stairs to the top of the canyon, thoroughly soaked from head to knees.

            Water ran down my legs and into my socks.  My shoes squished with each step by the time I met up with Shirley at the top of the stairs.

            “You’re drenched!” she said.

            “You should hold on to my stuff for a while,” I suggested.

            I went up the bridge and said “Hey guys, I thought you were only going to dunk my head!”

            “We did say it wasn't an exact science,” they explained. “There are a lot of factors at play.”

            Fair enough.  They had warned me.  Shirley noted a small dark spot under my eye.  “It looks like your mascara’s running,” she said. Not being a person who actually wears mascara, I didn’t think much of it at the time.

            Luckily, we were in between hotels, with all of our luggage in the car.  By the time I changed into dry clothes, it was time to pick up my video and a souvenir T-shirt from the kiosk.

            “Here you go,” kiosk lady said, handing over video disk.  “Half price if you’d like to do it again!”

            “If we weren't on a schedule to be somewhere else, I'd love to,” I replied.

            She looked at me and smiled. “You didn’t put your hands out before you hit the water.”

            “I really don't remember,” I confessed.

            “That dark spot is getting bigger,” Shirley noted.

            “You have what we call bungy face,” kiosk lady said. “Basically, you did a belly-flop with your face.  You might have a bit of discolouration for a day or two.”

            Within an hour, I had two decent shiners, but they didn’t hurt at all.   I got several odd looks from people checking out my black eyes the next few days. Overall, the experience was worth every penny.  Whenever I describe the experience to people, or show them the video, they always ask me if I'd do it again.

            “Absolutely!” I told them.  “And next time, it'll be a lot prettier!”

            I will take this death-defying leap again when the opportunity presents itself!  According to Wild Play's web site, over 265,000 people have tested their mettle and made the jump.  Check out this family of adventure parks at:  http://wildplay.com/

Mark Fenton
(Creative Non Fiction)