Jump off backwards you say?

Well as I'm a little behind with posting, I think I'll write about my experiences in Waitomo. It's a very, very small town it's main claim to fame, a series of caves with glowworms in them. You can take a walking tour or do something called Black Water Rafting. Now the latter involves crawling into a tiny space and descending 60ft under the ground, swimming through freezing cold water and jumping off waterfalls using a rubber ring. Being afraid of enclosed spaces, water and eels, oh yes I forgot to mention the caves have giant eels swimming in them, I decided "sign me up!"
I think it is the effect of travelling with a bunch of really young people all bungee jumping and diving from planes and what not, that made me do it. Yes it was a poor reason. I keep thinking if I'm afraid to do these things now, I'll never do them in a few years. I think I need to think more along the lines, I don't need to ever go black water caving, or sliding down a rock slide, but we'll get to that.
In preparation for the Waitomo Caves, we had to don wetsuits. Not just any wetsuits, but ones that have been worn by hundreds of people before you and are still wet! I think it took me a little over three hours to put the suit on and I still didn't have the fitted look. We were given old thermals to put under the wetsuits that looked like rejects from a children's nativity play.

At the start of the cave system.

I was with about 5 other people from the Kiwi bus (others had paid for the longer session and a sensible few had opted to walk the cave system) and a few Canadian tourists. We were driven out to a stream (about a metre deep) with wooden steps and a platform on the bank. We were each given a ring and told we needed to jump backwards off the platform into the raging river, ok stream. But still, jump backwards? I actually laughed because I thought this was some kind of joke. It wasn't.
In turn everyone reached the top of the platform, put their backs to the ocean (okay river), wedged their bums into the rubber rings and either jumped or where pushed off the platform.
I couldn't believe I was going to have to do this, I mean how was I meant to use my system of always keeping my head out of the water when swimming?
I reached the top. I decided I just had to go with it, everyone else was and I didn't want to think the performance of putting the wetsuit on had been in vain.
I would love to say I gracefully jumped with my bum wedged in the rubber ring, but what do you think? Yes I was the only person to somehow become detached from my rubber ring and sink to the bottom of the stream! I came spluttering to the surface, spitting out water and coughing like a 40 a day-er.

I have no idea if this is me or not, but you get the idea.

I was freezing cold by this point, the water had been very cold. We started to hike towards the cave entrance with our rubber rings tucked under arms.
The cave entrance was really small, we had to pass our rubber rings to the guides and slowly descend into the cave. The sound of all the water running was very loud and made me want to pee.
We each wore a helmet with a miners lamp, the small light helped us through into the cave.
At first we were wading through water, up to our knees, okay mid thigh for me. Eventually we had to wedge ourselves into our rubber rings and float through a very narrow part of the cave. The water was high and we had to lie flat with our faces inches from the cave ceiling.

This is the publicity shot that makes you think, oh that looks lovely.

Floating inside the caves, we were able to see the glowworms overhead. Some sections of the caves are very high and it's like entering a cathedral. It's strange how light seeps through from above, creating a stunning effect.
We stopped further into the cave system, snacks were handed around. We were handed chocolate fish shapes filled with marshmallow, they tasted terrible, but I didn't want to drop mine in the water in case it attracted an eel, so I ate it.
Our first waterfall was about 3 metres high, I was near the front of the line. I decided it was best to get this out the way, I knew there would only be two waterfalls, the second being 5 metres high.
After Jade (another Brit from the bus) jumped, I followed. Once again I became detached from my rubber ring mid air and fell backwards into the icy cold water. Again I swallowed a load of water and came up coughing. By the time I got back to my rubber ring, which by now I was feeling a certain hatred towards, I was shaking with the cold.

I have no idea what was so funny, or even if I could re-create this expression, what am I doing?

As a group we were asked to get into the "Eel" position we'd practised above ground. This involved linking, putting your feet on the rubber ring of the person in front. That person then puts your feet under their arms, as each person does this it creates a chain. I created a shaking eel effect, as I was so cold.
For me this was the best part of the excursion as we slowly floated with our lights turned off, looking at the glowworms above and the sudden high cavernous ceiling.
Unfortunately there was still one more waterfall to jump off, backwards of course. Jade gave me some advice, that is pretty obvious but had escaped me. Lean forward! Of course that's why I was falling out of the rubber ring each time!! Why had I not thought of this? Okay that's rhetorical.
Knowing this would be the last time I would ever jump backwards off a 5m waterfall 60ft underground, I edged to the precipice, with bum wedged into rubber ring and thought of nothing else but leaning forward, I jumped backwards.
I floated.