So first off, I’d like to give a HUGE thank you to Adam Mabee at Parachute School of Toronto for the ENORMOUS hospitality he showed us at PST.

Not only were we welcomed with open arms, he made sure that we got into the sky even when mother nature wasn’t 100% cooperative. The wind conditions were perfect, but cloud ceiling wasn’t very much so….
We got several hop and pops done, some emergency exit practice and luckily I even managed to get in on one of the two loads that got to 9.5k (We had a blue hole opened up for us for about an hour on the Sunday).

Long story short, Adam was a great host, and I honestly look forward to going back to PST again.

So Friday evening around 4:30 pm, we head off from Montreal for a 7 hour drive to Toronto.
We were to be the last ones there, leaving Montreal with somewhat disappointing weather (There was a pretty big snowfall while we were on our way), that left me kind of worried that we wouldn’t get to jump if conditions stayed this way. But as we got closer and closer to our destination, things got greener and greener…
To put things simply: There was no snow after the Quebec/Ontario border.

Now, we’re beginning February in Canada… One would expect to see some white… But seriously, there was nothing at all.

At this point I’m thinking “What the hell kind of a winter jump is this gonna be? I’ll be landing on grass”

But we continue on our way regardless. Obviously we’re not here for snow, we’re here to jump off planes.

Around 11:30 PM, we arrive at the hotel, everyone’s been drinking, we’re last to arrive. The others has stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and managed to get us sponsored. We would have to skydive while wearing their kid’s crown, in exchange, we’d get 50 wings. For those of you who don’t know, B.W.W. has a hot wing challenge where you have 5 minutes to eat 10 of their hottest wings (200 000 – 350 000 scoville) – More on that later.

So we get drunk and head to bed around 2:30 AM like good skydivers. ( We can sleep on the plane right? )

At 7:30 AM, we get up and head out for breakfast then on to the DZ.

We arrive around 10 AM.

The DZ is just opening up, they’re pulling their Cessna 182 out of the hangar (The 206 had just gotten a new engine, so they’re going easy on it for a bit).
I walk in to see this:

Put a smile on my face, even though Adam hates it for being tacky.
I manifest myself on the first load to 4500 feet to get a quick hop and pop done and to simply work off the rust since my last skydive.
While on the load, that beautiful blue sky you see in the picture earlier proceeds to disappear and we’re told that the ceiling is at about 5000 at the moment.
Worked for this load, but later on, it kept creeping lower, and lower, and lower, and lower…
Luckily, Adam kept us warm with a nice fire:

Needless to say, the ceiling never went back up and stuck around 3000-3200 feet.
Adam made sure that our time wasn’t wasted and let those of us who were comfortable do some emergency exit practices:
We may not have gotten full altitude, but we did have a great time.

That night, we went back to B.W.W.

With our pictures from the day as proof:

 We of course got our hot wings…And yes, I proceeded to eat them in less than 5 minutes… Tears, runny nose, burning fingers and all…. I will not go into details about how my poor colon felt the next day.

So Sunday morning, we headed back to PST for some more action. We had convinced Adam to open early so that we could get as many jumps in as possible before heading back.
We were greeted by gray skies and a ceiling of 5000 in the morning. So once again, hop and pops.
I got on the 3rd load, attempted to do a mini track jump with one of the girls, but ended up back-flipping unintentionally on the way out and simply tracking on my own.
After that jump, I decided to sit out for a bit to warm up while the others jumped more.
I’m super glad I did, because Adam came in to announce that there was a hole that opened up.
Before he even got further than the word “hole” to tell us how high we could go, myself and 2 others were running to the whiteboard to put our names on the next load.

We got up to 9.5k, I got to do some head down, and I had triumphed at what I had set out to do: Get a full altitude winter jump done at PST.

All was well until about 500 feet, when I realized that I was coming in to land on a patch of ice. I figure “time to slide on my butt”, I proceed to do so, but then slide another 20 feet past the ice right into the mud.
Those wings + my muddy backside have won me the nickname “Shitty pants” at the DZ for quite some time.

Hopefully Adam and the others at PST enjoyed the laugh at my expense.

Once again, I’d like to extend a HUGE thank you to Adam and the peeps at PST for being so welcoming and so nice to this group of crack-headed skydivers from Quebec.
I have to say that of all the Drop Zones I’ve visited, this is by far one of the ones that is MOST fun jump oriented. Adam is a true saint in the sport, he runs the school for the love of the sport and not for the money.
Rentals at 12$ if you pack them yourself are by far the cheapest I’ve ever seen for any canopies at all. (You’re jumping Sabers if you go for the sport canopies)

If ever you’re in the area, be sure to stop in for a fun jump or two, and as Adam constantly says “Just don’t fuck up”.

Blue skies everyone! (More pictures from PST on our facebook page and here)

Adam A!

Hey everyone!

It’s been quite some time since my last post, I’m so sorry about the fact that we haven’t come up with much new content this past while.
I’ve had to take a year off from skydiving to sort of reassess where my life is as well as pay off some debts that I sorta just left lying around…

I’ve been staring at the skies waiting till my chance to get back up there.
I missed the 100 way Canadian record attempt that was done at Parachute Montreal. They didn’t manage to break the record due to weather issues, but they did 5 attempts and are planning to retry in 2012.

I’m finally going to get my fix, some friends and I are headed to this coming weekend. That’s right, February 4th and 5th, we’ll be jumping out of a sexy Cessna at 13500 feet in Frozen Canada.
I’m expecting it to be – 1 000 000 Degrees out, so I’ll be jumping in a mixture of both my skydive gear and my snowboard gear (Full face helmet, snowsuit, board socks, etc…) I’m pretty sure that my frost bite will have frost bite. I CAN’T WAIT!

I’ll have some pictures taken and post them up as soon as I can.
I promise you that I’ll be writing more as of now, if not about my jumps, about some random info I get about the sport.

On a side note: We at Skydive Addiction would like to wish a quick recovery to Jeb Corliss, for those of you who aren’t aware, he injured himself in a base jumping accident earlier this month.

Blue skies everyone!

Adam

So I just got back from Varadero Cuba…
Absolutely had to pop into the local DZ to check it out and hopefully to do a few jumps with the locals…
Turned out it’s a tandem factory, but they’re fairly welcoming to other skydivers. Weather didn’t permit us to jump on the day of my visit, so we played dominoes together…
(I snapped some photos, but haven’t developed them yet)

The DZ is actually owned by the government there, they fly a 20 seat soviet chopper (didn’t get to snap any photos of it though)
Depending on wind conditions, you either land on their badly maintained field or on the beach in front of your hotel.

Equipment-wise, they’ve got the standard canopies/containers (American brands, but bought through Europe).

The staff is extremely welcoming, but the facilities need work… There’s only about 15-20 skydivers that live in the area, the rest are all tandem tourists.
A jump ticket is 25 CUC (+ – 30$), they go up to 11000 feet.

Weather never ended up permitting me to jump, so my friends and I decided to rent some scooters and go to town on our 5th day. We got into an accident and I sprained my ankle… Karma of course came into play and the following days were perfect for skydiving… I sat next to the pool watching planes fly by.
Needless to say, that part sucked.

Hope you’re all having a very blue off season!

So it’s nearly the end of the season in Quebec and in most places actually…
Although there’s still a couple of weeks left to the season, it’s over for me at this point.

I ended it with a bang though, got my first helicopter jump done (4000 feet).
And yes, I bought beer… And rum actually haha.

To give some of you a quick description of what it’s like to do a heli jump as opposed to a normal skydive from a plane, when you jump from the chopper, you’re getting off out of a vehicle that’s barely moving, so you actually get that feeling that you’re falling at first. When you jump off a plane, the plane’s moving at about 80 mph, so when you jump, there’s wind pushing you in some direction, the wind you’re feeling (Called relative wind) starts off on the side (opposite direction that the plane is moving in) and ends up in front of you (you’re falling down, wind seems to be blowing up)

I don’t know why for certain, but, once you’re actually in the relative wind, you don’t feel yourself falling, you feel as if you’re static in one place.
With the helicopter jump, you feel yourself falling until you’ve accelerated enough to reach a speed at which you once again feel motionless.
It’s quite the similar feeling to a bungee jump.
Base jumping is also the same feeling as this.
It’s something I’d do again, but it’s not that high on my priority list…

Blue ones everyone!
-Adam

Hey everyone!

I had a very eventful day last Saturday, it started off with my celebration jump for my B license.
We did a 7 way that went to hell, was someone’s 100th jump and the idea was that we would do a hybrid (some belly fliers, some free fliers).
The plan was that we’d have a 4 person base (I was in the base).
With 2 people hanging onto us and one stinger (He was on camera filming and would randomly hook on and off in freefly)

Our exit was fairly unstable and I ended up separated from everyone, I was falling way too slow to be able to keep up no matter how hard I tried, I failed miserably… If I had a camera, I would’ve had the best view of this jump though, I was just above everyone and saw everything… Was laughing the whole time… I found it funny to watch one of the hangers fall on someone

For the 2nd jump, we did a 4way hybrid, well.. attempted to, again, with the guy who was 100 lbs heavier than me, but this time with a girl who was 80 lbs lighter than I am…
Needless to say, she and I couldn’t keep up =P

I gave up on trying to keep up with the other guy (I need to practice my speed flying before I try that again)

For the 3rd jump, I participated in someone’s 900th. It was a 9 way belly fly.
We were supposed to exit the plane on red and jump on green, I dunno why, but we were already falling on red…

The jump was fairly well planned, but someone had a brain fart and ended up below us. We had a few issues and ended up zooing the jump, but was fun.
That is… Until we all tracked away and I pulled my pilot chute…

My canopy opened… To reveal:

A beautiful….

Line over!!!!!

It was off center a bit to the right, I was spinning but managed to control it.
Decided to try to land it.
Most of us didn’t make it back, with normal openings… With the fact that I lost about 1500 feet of altitude spinning and was flying a crippled canopy, I’m sure you know I wasn’t one of the people who did…
I landed just off a pumpkin patch in some soft dirt.
I had about a km and a half (1 mile) to walk back to the DZ.
Wasn’t so bad except for the fact that I was walking through a farmer’s field with my canopy.

After having gotten back to the DZ, I got an earful from one of the packers…
She doesn’t like me to begin with, and I think on top of that, she was the one who had packed the rig. She didn’t believe that I had a malfunction and was probably having a bad day to begin with.

So come the end of the day, there are still some tandems that hadn’t jumped, the sun’s setting, they go up for 2 quick loads while we bring in some cars to light up the landing area.
It was still somewhat light out so they didn’t need more than 2-3 cars to light the area.

For our jump, we had set up about 20…
There was no moon out, the sky was dark, the only light we had was the lights of the city (let me tell you, it’s beautiful up there).
We had 10 cars on each side of the landing area set up at an angle so we wouldn’t get any light in our eyes.
It was set up in two passes (a pass is when the plane flies over where we’re supposed to jump out, when there’s two passes, half the people jump out the 1st time, we close the door, fly around for about 5 minutes, then pass again)
The jump was organized in a way so that the more experienced jumpers got out first, and the least got out last. There was very little wind that day, so we only needed about 15 seconds of delay between each jumper.
Each of us had a designated altitude to open at, the 1st at 3500 feet, 2nd at 4000, 3rd 4500, etc… All the way up to 7000 feet on each pass.

I decided that after the day I had, I just wanted to belly fly and take in the view…
At that moment, falling at 120 mph, looking at the city lights from 4 km in the sky, I can honestly say that it was probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever done for myself and I loved my self that much more for giving myself that experience… (Yes, I’m romantically linked to myself and there’s no one I love more than me =P)

I haven’t had the opportunity to jump since, but I’ll keep you guys posted on my progress.
I may end up going to Niagara Falls next weekend, if I do, I’ll be jumping there for sure.

In the meantime: Blue ones!

- Adam

As a follow-up to my post My original plan for this year… My actual results

I’m now at 62 jumps, I’ve spent about 5000$ on the sport (not counting the 1750$ for the solo course, the 350$ for the jump suit, the 280$ for my protrack, 260$ for my full face, my 100$ for my Altimaster II or the 1200$ spent going to Florida to take that solo course)

I’ve just passed my B license, (Yes, Got my B 15 jumps after passing my A).
I’ve not only passed the B license exam… I got 96.25% on it… According to my DZO, it’s the highest grade he’s ever seen =D.

I now have an altimaster II galaxy altimeter, a tony suits jump suit, a protrack audible, a factory diver full face, a packing tool and a huge smile on my face.

I did however decide to slow down on the purchases and decided not to buy a rig this year.
I’m going to start paying off some debts for now and maybe buy one next year.

As it stands, I’ve now surpassed my 2 year goal on the sport haha.

Next step: Coach 1 lessons and maybe Rigger A.

It’s been 4 days since then, and I’m still feeling the after effects of Saturday.

I started everything off by partying with some friends Friday night and got to bed around 4:30AM…
Woke up the next morning at 8:00AM to pick up some friends at the Metro (Subway) and then head to the DZ.
My mom, being a pastry chef decided that she wanted to make me some cookies and brownies to bring with me, so I had about 3 boxes of junk food with me along with my skydive gear, a small ziplock back full of cherries, my box of Gatorade powder and a huge smile on my face because the sky was just so perfectly blue!

We arrive at the DZ at about 10:00AM, I have 7 people who came along with me to do a tandem jump for the first time, they’re as excited as I am…
My buddy Alex who’s also a skydiver decided that he wanted to pop in and bring me a gift… The most wonderful gift a person can give a skydiver… He didn’t want to tell me what it was over the phone, all he said was that it’s golden and that he thought of me when he bought it.

I had no idea what to expect, in my head I was thinking “hmm, golden and he thought of me… Does this guy have a thing for me or something?”
After a few laughs at that idea, he pulled the gift out from behind his back… a Heineken Draughtkeg!!!!!

This is probably the best thing one can give a skydiver…

So I proceeded to hide it behind the manifest’s desk to be sure no one taps it open before I get to it.
(Many laughs about the disappearing keg followed later on which I’ll write about)

So i manifest myself on a first load, do a 2way with a buddy at the DZ, we decide that today we’re gonna do fun jumps that aren’t serious.
First exit: Roller coaster! I’m in front in a seated position with my legs pointing forward in front of me, his legs are on my sides, I’m holding onto his leg grips and he’s holding onto my shoulder grips.
We jumped out facing the wind instead of back to the wind, so we span all over the place going first feet forward looking down, then ended up looking up towards the plane. Was a blast!

We did some formation work after stabilizing, we grabbed arms, he satellited around me, then grabbed my arms again, then I went around him, grabbed his arms and so on.
This was his official 100th jump. (Unofficially however it was an 8way )

We landed exactly on point…. The instructors at the DZ however…. Landed in the soy bean fields hahahahaha!

2nd jump, two of the tandems I brought along were on the plane, one was nervous, the other was extatic.

We decided to do a head down exit, so we grabbed onto each other’s shoulder grips, jumped out, stayed head down for a few seconds, stabilized, did the same thing as the last jump, except this time after going around one side, we’d inverse and go the other side.
Again, perfect landing.

3rd jump, 2 more tandems come on (hopefully one will be doing his AFF soon)
did a 4 way with an H position exit, we were fairly sloppy on the exit (*AHEM* *Fabien* *COUGH* *COUGH*
We lost major stability and took a while to get back together… Actually, we never did, they all fell faster than I did and I couldn’t catch up before 5k feet.

Great landing though…. so golden that I had to run towards my canopy so that it wouldn’t catch wind and pull me off my feet…
Then I realize that I ran onto the runway as the plane is landing, so I have to run back….

The tandems were extatic at the end of the jump hugging each other and yelling in the field.

4th jump was another 4way, same people, same exit except this time, the person who will remain unnamed took an easier position (tail of the H only has to jump backwards, no need to position himself into the wind or anything)
The exit is flawless this time, we stabilize… Except when we started the 1st point, this same person *COUGH* *COUGH!* Sorry bad cold…
Turned the wrong way.. apparently he doesn’t know right from left

So he ended up face to face with the person next to him, being an open circle, we lost balance with the relative wind and split up again. Well he did, the other 3 of us stayed together… hahaha

Great landing again

Another friend showed up to wish me a happy birthday, she surprised me as I was walking back with my rig on my shoulder from this jump. She came by to simply do one jump with me then continue on her way.
So we did a 2 way, also with a head down exit as before.
During freefall, I turned to my right, she gripped my sides, then went around gripped the other side, then came in front of me, she turned, I gripped her sides, went around, gripped the other side, then went in front of her.

Golden landing, she then went on her way and I planned to do one last jump with the same person as earlier.

6th jump was a solo, practiced for my B license series.

7th jump was a sunset load, I did another 2way with my buddy from earlier, we decided to do some back flying. we basically just spun around in circles for fun for the last jump.
Under canopy at 1 km in the air (3000 feet) while the sun has just finished setting is one of the most amazing feelings ever!

Afterwards, we were all hanging around the DZ trying to figure out whether or not to go out for food or to order pizza.
I broughts out the keg, others cracked open some bottles…
We then realized that there were no cups to be found… SACRILEGE!
I put the keg down, turn my back to talk to someone, turn around to see one of the tandem masters as he says bye to me to then look down and see that he’s hiding something under his shirt.
His statement: “What keg?”

Similar jokes were cracked over the next 20 minutes.

The DZO set up a bonfire and then ordered pizza for everyone. We all sat around the fire, drank, laughed, etc… Until about midnight when people started leaving.
I went to an after hours with my friend and partied till the sun came up… Litterally

I’m still sore

My Factory Diver should be in this week. I also ordered a Protrack so reviews should be up soon

Blue ones everybody!

-Adam

WOO HOO!!!
25th birthday today, skies are blue, weather’s warm, I’ve got a rig for the day and a bunch of friends meeting me at the DZ… Gonna be a fun day!

Damn I should’ve gotten more sleep!

Blue ones!

- Adam

So in the end, we didn’t do a jump at 20 000 feet, the DZ wasn’t able to get the permits.
So we jumped from 18000.

Everyone on the plane had oxygen masks, we were 4 loads of 8-9 people.
On my load, a buddy who’s birthday it was who they added to our load to accommodate (He wasn’t supposed to be jumping today, they originally limited the day at 30 jumpers)
Most of the load were friends of mine I had met while skydiving, 3 of which were jumping with me.

At 12 000 feet, we were told to put on our oxygen masks, and from 12000 feet until 18000 things were normal… Aside from the cold.

It’s 25 degrees on the ground, I know it’s cold in the sky, yet for some reason…. I managed to not wear gloved… I actually don’t have skydive gloves in my colors, but I usually wear my snowboard gloves instead.

We did a 4way RW (Relative Work) jump. I was the tail, first to jump out while holding in an H position. Our bodies are placed like the letter H with our arms being the middle point. (In reality, it’s more of a domino shape with the top, middle and bottom line being our arms, but it’s called an H position)

We position ourselves, exit, it’s a little unstable and the person to my right ended up coming under us but we replaced ourselves and got good grips onto each other.
We then started doing our formations, or at least tried to…. After the 1st point, (everyone turned 90 degrees clockwise) things started to lose balance, so we basically played a game of tag in the air.

Landing was a bit rough, I jumped a Sabre II 170, loaded at 1.16, wind was very shaky today and lots of people got hurt on our run, I came close.
I was hoping to get a nice swoop in, but I flared about 2 feet too late and didn’t compensate by pulling faster and harder, as I started to swoop, my feet had touched the ground, but I was still coming down a little and my knees touched the ground, then the swoop picked up, lifted me onto my feet then stopped.
I got dirty, but didn’t hurt myself thankfully.
2 people on my load had hurt themselves on the run.

One person came in very close to some trees and got some wind burble due to that, he wasn’t able to keep control 100% and landed a bit hard, another person caught some turbulence and didn’t correct it, he was about 20 feet off the ground, in the end the right side of his parachute folded in and he landed rolling.

Some other people just landed in the middle of nowhere.
On the bright side, I landed exactly on target

The wind picked up not long after the jump to 23 naughts (about 26 mph), so they grounded the planes by the 11th load of the day.
I decided to call it a day and head home to relax.
“You know you’re a skydiver when… You’re able to wake up at 5 am to go to the drop zone and skydive to be there for 7 am, but you have a hard time being up at 6:30 to go to work for 8.”

Blue skies everyone

- Adam

Well, as far as I’ve been able to read, as it stand, Lance has got it way better than I do in Canada…

A jump ticket here is 35$ Canadian (34$ us give or take)
Packing is only 6$ though. So if you have your own rig, it’s 41$ if you have your rig packed. Add another 30$ if you rent a rig.
It’s July, I’ve done 2 jumps this month so far, (Not kidding)
I’ve done 48 overall this year, 10 of which were my AFF, 10 were my RW course, 2 were with camera men to film my “flip” attempts and the rest fun jumps and have easily spent 6000$ so far… This doesn’t include buying a jumpsuit or helmet.

As it stands, my money can go much farther in Lodi California than it can here or in South Africa, but it’ll cost me a fortune to go there in the 1st place. (In Lodi it’s about 9$ a jump+ packing) But given the choice, I’d rather jump in South Africa… Lodi isn’t exactly the nicest looking part of the world.

As for wing loading, the DZs here don’t limit you with anything, they just want to make sure you’re comfortable jumping with whatever loading you choose.
Right now, I’m jumping a 1.16 loading and am looking at downsizing to 1.32 by the time I buy my rig next april (We can’t jump in the winter, so it’ll be the equivalent of downsizing in October).

So I stick to my grounds on saying that SA’s got it somewhat better

Then again, I’m not really sure of the average income/cost of living there though but judging from all the “sponsor a child in Africa” commercials, I guess I can see why it’s not affordable for most people.

Fill me in Lance!
- Adam