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Skydive Varadero

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!

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Where am I?

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.

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What a birthday!

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!!!!!
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 :P)

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….
running towards canopy

running from canopy

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

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It’s my birthday and I wanna skydive…

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

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All this planning and I forget to bring my gloves

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

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Jumping in SA is cheaper than here =(

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

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Skydiving in South Africa

Right – I guess I should start off with describing how EXPENSIVE skydiving is here in relation to the general income (I’ll try make this as easy to understand as possible).

Skydiving in South Africa has unfortunately reached a point where it is reserved for professionals. I am sure not why this is, but it a major factor behind skydiving here not being as accessible as it is in the rest of the world.

To put it in context – A jump ticket cost me R200 (roughly $26.50), gear hire and packing – $9.90 each jump. Considering I normally take home around $2000 per month after TAX (Which in Rands is a fairly decent salary).

So – By the time I pay for my car, rent, food, cell phone  etc, I am usually left with around $260 to jump with 🙁

I can’t really compare the cost side of things to the US as I don’t know how much it costs relative to the average salary, however – In South Africa, jumping is out of reach for the general public 🙁

Other than the costs involved, Jumping in South Africa is pretty much the same as anywhere else in the world, just on a smaller scale. We only have about 6 Drop Zones in the whole country, but I plan to jump at all of them 🙂

As for BEER FINES, yes – we have them 🙂 but on a smaller scale. For passing my AFF progression, I was rewarded with having to buy a case of beer, and while everyone sits around drinking my beer, they laugh at all my AFF videos. I then had to tell a story that begins with “Oh SHIT, there I was – I thought I was going to die…(insert story here :-))”  Then had to down a beer within 5 seconds, and if you don’t finish it – pour it on your head. Haha – Good Times!

For our “Firsts”, we have to do down-downs, not buy cases of beer – This suits me just fine because two cases of beer is equivalent to one jump ticket, and I’m sure everyone knows – when you first get into the sport, there are A LOT of firsts!

Things are looking very promising for the skydiving future of South Africa as; recently a very wealthy business man decided to invest in uplifting the sport. So far he has built and upgraded various drop zones around the country, bought 6 ex South African Air force planes (Previously known as Atlas Kudu’s) and is currently in the process of having them all converted to turbine engines. The first three have been rolled out (My DZ currently has one). These are now called Atlas Angels and have a wicked paint job :-). The idea is that once all 6 have been converted, 5 drop zones will each have one and there will be a spare for when one goes in for a service! I love these planes – it takes just 12 minutes from take-off to 12 000ft, and about the same time back to the end of the run way.

Although the Angels only hold 9 skydivers, they are normally on their way back up with load 2 by the time the tandems from load 1 are landing 🙂

See below pic’s of my favourite jump ship 🙂

One thing I love (Especially now being winter here), from about 7 000ft and up the view is amazing! To the right of the plane, we can see the Drakensburg Mountains, covered with snow, and to the left, we see the entire Durban coast line and even the arch of our new stadium!

Those are the main differences that I know of – the only other minor difference is: Here, the maximum wing loading for a “Beginner / intermediate” skydiver is 1.0 as opposed to the 1.1 in the US, not a huge difference, but for me – it’s the difference between being able to fly a 170 vs. a 150. Meaning that now (Because I’m in the process of buying my FIRST rig) I have to buy a 150 canopy, and look at it in the cupboard while I jump a 170 till I get my B-License 🙁 as the 150 is going for a great price and don’t want to lose out!

I haven’t been able to jump anywhere other than in South Africa, so I’m just going on what I’ve read. Please feel free to add a comment if there is anything specific that you would like to know about.

Blue skies everyone and happy days!

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A Little Intro

Hi everyone,

I thought it best to introduce myself…

Hi, my name is Lance, and I’m a skydiving addict! It’s been exactly 2 days and 19 hours since my last fix and I’m getting serious withdrawal’s – I like to call this “Altitude Sickness” 🙂

I live and jump in Durban, South Africa and needless to say, skydiving here is not quite what it is in the US and the rest of the world. Yes – It IS as awesome and as addictive as it is everywhere else in the world, but it is not as “Big” here as it is everywhere else…but hey – that just means I can get on more loads! 🙂

I’ve currently only got 39 jumps under my belt and am about to start (this weekend) my free fly training for my CAT II & III (Super excited).

I guess you could say that skydiving is in my blood – My parents actually met skydiving in Ohio, although my mom decided it wasn’t for her after landing in a tree, my dad went on to do 600 odd jumps and get his D-License.

I am very grateful to my dad for marrying a US Citizen, because it means that I am also a US citizen which would allow me to travel and jump in the USA without having to worry about visa’s 🙂 THANKS DAD!

I love skydiving life! Skydiving has completely taken over my world and only skydivers ACTUALLY understand how addictive it is, and why it’s pretty much the only thing I talk about!

Anyway, I am very excited about being able to write for Skydive Addiction and give my insight into the skydiving life in my part of the world.

Blue Skies everyone and happy days!

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High altitude jump woo hoo!

Only 6 more sleeps until I get to do a high altitude 4 way jump with some friends.

For those of you who don’t know what that means… Normally, when you do a skydive, you jump out of the plane at 13500 feet. Or in some cases 10500 feet (if in a smaller plane).

If the plane is between 10000 and 13000 feet for more than 30 minutes, then they have to have oxygen available for the skydivers with a minimum of 1 mask for every 10 jumpers.

If above 13000 feet, everyone needs oxygen for the duration of the flight. (Exceptions are made for the first 500 feet at most DZs)

Above 20000 feet, each skydiver needs oxygen for the descent as well. (An oxygen bottle to jump with)

Now, because of all these regulations, Drop Zones reserve high altitude jumps for special occasions, plan it out months in advance (to be sure to have oxygen available) and take reservations as well.
I’ve been waiting 2 months for this coming Sunday.
Why?
Because this Sunday is gonna be my 1st experience with it.
What’s so special about it?
Well, when you jump at 13500 feet, it takes about 1500-2000 feet to stabilize, and an extra 500-1000 feet if you’re in a group to start doing formations. Leaving you about 11000 feet to play with right?

Wrong!
You separate at about 4500 feet and release your canopy at about 3000-3500…

So that leaves only 6500 feet of freefall to “play” in…. Falling at 174 feet per second, that’s only 37 seconds…

When falling from 20000 feet, you still need the 2500 or so feet to stabilize and start formations, plus separation at about 4500 feet, but that still leaves you 13000 feet to have fun with… OR 74 seconds of freefall with which to do your formation… You’re effectively doubling your play time…
Now that’s a LOT of falling =)

It’s costing 85$ plus canopy rental (Unless I can convince a buddy to lend me his :P)
And it’s gonna be 85$ well spent!

I’ll share my experience with you when I get home afterward!

Blue Skies!

-Adam

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Never thought that giving something would be so hard….

This week is one of the Héma-Québec blood drives, they’ve been putting ads all over the place with the whole “Give blood, give life” thing.
I figured to myself that I’ve done quite a bit of living, might as well share the wealth.

I’ve never actually done this before, so I wasn’t familiar with the procedures, so I decided Well, since I have a half hour lunch, been eating all day, that should be PLENTY of time.”

WROOOOONG!!!!

Turns out that the 2 minute procedure of drawing a liter of blood is actually followed by a 58 minute proceedure of filling out forms, answering questions and eating cookies….
I went to donate blood, and was sent packing because I wasn’t able to give them an extra half hour of my time…
I even offered to come back at the end of my work day, which is 4 pm give or take 10 minutes (sometimes I’m stuck working on something for a bit, but USUALLY I’m done at 4)

The woman tells me that they stop taking patients at 4 pm and aren’t willing to wait 5 MINUTES for one more…

They have a counter going on, and it’s aimed at 75 donors… They’re at 40 and today’s the last day… They spend millions on ads to get more donors, yet they can’t wait 5 more minutes for one?
Hell, they planted themselves inside the biggest office building in Montreal… 44 floors of offices, easily with 5-10 thousand employees overall, but they set themselves up to work 9-4?!?!
They’d have more donors being open from 7 am-9 am then 4 pm to 6 pm….
4 hour work day but at efficient times… Work smart not hard was something that I had always been told…

Anyways, I’m done ranting haha.

On another note: I WANNA B.A.S.E. MY OFFICE! Heck, if I don’t survive, Héma-Québec can take the blood that splatters on the pavement 😉

-Adam