Absolute Control – Weekly Travel Photo

Heads turned upwards towards the sky, we watched as three airplanes flew in formation above us. They cut across the airspace over Copenhagen before lazily looping back around for a second pass.  This time we looked on with baited breath as a small dot separated from the lead aircraft and plunged towards us. A few brief seconds passed before the familiar sight of a precision parachute blossomed behind the dot which was quickly taking the shape of a man.  After enjoying a few lazy spirals he positioned himself roughly over the portion of the Norrebro lakes which had been transformed into a wet-water splashdown zone replete with white targeting buoy and two lines of floating landing zone markers.

The name of the game? To plunge towards the water at the last moment building up speed, then flair out, using the added speed and momentum to “swoop” down and water ski as close to the white landing marker as possible before eventually losing momentum and splashing into the water.  In this week’s photo the most impressive of the skydivers not only managed to plunge smoothly down towards the water in dramatic fashion (see the other photos in the series), he then hit the water, walked on it for at least a dozen feet, and managed to make the “aced it” finger gun motion at the assembled onlookers and crowd while skidding across the water’s surface.  Talk about absolute control and being calm in the moment ehh?

The skydivers were participating in the launch event for the Copenhagen Swoop Challenge.  They, along with a small team, will travel around Europe putting on similar urban skydiving/swoop challenges.

Make sure to head over to flickr to see the rest of the album.

Would you like to see previous Weekly Photos? View past travel pictures here. This photo was taken on a Canon T3i (600D) Camera.