[Gemetria]

Getting there:

It was an eventful flight with Robbie, Vaughney and myself meeting up at Sydney Airport. I found Robbie at the bar (8:30am) and he was kind enough to point out that it must have gone midday somewhere in the world so i joined him for a couple of beers. This was to set the scene for the rest of the journey and we quickly made friends with some of the cabin crew who were kind enough to keep a constant supply of Scotch and beer coming to us through out the 13 hour flight. This was doubly appreciated as the flight was to be the most turbulent any of us had ever known.

On one of Robbie's wanderings around the aircraft he came across the cabin crew munching on canapés from the first Class galley and in short order had managed to get us a plate delivered to us in cattle class. Nice work Robbie! This was only topped by one of the crew passing us a bag with something wrapped in paper just before we landed. It turned out to be an untouched bottle of Wild Turkey Rare Breed!! Enjoying one as I type this now.


Robbie and i took a vote and Michael was duly appointed the designated driver as we emerged from the airport. The car was quickly loaded and we left the airport trying to follow some print outs Michael had of where we were meant to be heading. With only a couple of wrong turns and a very brief piece of off-roading we made it to our guest house Casa Lumini. Thanks to Niki for doing all the organising of this for us.


Day 1:

Found us all awake earlier than I think any of us would have liked due to time differences. The breakfast was excellent and then it was off to the DZ with much heavy cloud and a fair breeze above us. The Johannesburg Skydiving Club is only a very short drive from where we are staying and boasts some fairly nice facilities as well as a decent sized pond. Though there is a local resident in the pond that gives an added incentive which is Snappy the Croc their pet mascot who was found hanging out by the entry gate (photo below). Both Robbie and Michael were greeted by all as old friends and there really didn't seem to be many people there that they did not already know.

After a couple of hours of hanging around the day was called at 11:30am??!! And they suggested that the beer was cold and now was as good a time to start as any. I guess some things are the same the world over when it comes to skydivers

The weather is much colder than anticipated so it was off to town for a look around and to do some shopping for some long trousers as I had neglected to pack any or anything long sleeved or warm as I had been expecting South Africa to be somewhat hot. As I write this the others have headed to the airport to collect Andrew Gellatley and Mr David Noble with the rest of the team arriving over the next few days.

Tomorrow is expected to be better weather so hopefully will get a chance to jump from what has to be the finest example of an XL I have ever seen and to see quite how much difference being at 5,000' above sea level really does make to swooping. Apparently all jumps here are from 6,000' AGL and the extra time is really needed.

I'm really looking forward to my first jump outside of Australia
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[Gemetria]

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[Gemetria]

Day Two:

The day started in what seems to be looking like becoming a habitual event. Once again breakfast was provided by our Hostess in grand fashion. Michael Vaughan's comment that it looks like a Wing-Loading week seems to be on the money. Andrew Gellatly and Dave Noble arrived yesterday and are already settling into the hospitality here.

With everyone suffering the effects of jet-lag we were all raring to go and arrived at the DZ with most of us pre-manifested on the first load. Manifest here works slightly differently to what we are used to at home with people manifesting for the whole day. So it made sense to book ourselves onto every second load and we were set for the day. Exit height is 6,000' due to the higher elevation of the DZ. At 5,000' feet above sea-level everything seems to be happening a lot faster and the extra height is well appreciated.

Most of the team did 8 or 9 jumps today with Robbie and Michael leading the charge with some very impressive and consistant runs while the rest of us were happy just to be running the entry gates and getting used to the change of pace. The weather certainly was vastly improved on yesterday and apart from a brief pause early in the morning due to some heavy cloud cover the day ran smoothly with 24 loads going up in the XL. Tomorrow it seems we will have a Cessna in the morning and the PAC again in the afternoon and this could set the pace for the rest of the week as well.

The locals have made us extremely welcome and the club itself has some very nice facilities. Tandems and Students are done by a few different concessions who pay a small fee to the club to run their operations there.

There were a few cartons owed after todays efforts with Dave, Andrew and myself all owing for our first jump overseas as well as the usual first jump at a new DZ etc. It seems that most of us are too tired at the end of the day so I imagine that some of these beers will be paid later in the week. As I am writing this we are sitting watching the TV after another great meal and I can see eyes drooping and heads nodding already. Tomorrow's weather forecast is just like today's so more of the same hopefully.

nb a special shout out to Martin 'DangerPants' Reynolds (UK) for christening the pond for us visitors and narrowly missing out a close encounter with Snappy!



....photo's to follow

[Muz]

Aussies on the Cypres blog.

[extreme]

No mention of Kieran.. Dont tell me he got taken by the sharks on his first cage dive...?

[Gemetria]

Day Three

It was a lazy start to the the day with jumping starting after 11am due to a lack of pilot and fuel for the Turbo 206. once things got rolling though the day ran smoothly with only a couple shut downs along the way. Jump prices are 200 rand (approx $33) and there is a daily club membership (dz fee's are still here) of 30 rand ($5). The facilities are good and the bar is excellent and with beers costing 10 rand ($1.60) each the thoughts of DZ fee s disappeared quickly.

With the down wind component picking up substantially the newer members of the team decided to watch the first load while those more experienced made their first runs of the day into wind. Their aim being to dip toes in the water and get a feel for the pond. Even with a head wind the runs were impressive. Running into the wild grass un-mowed at the other end of the pond must have been interesting for them however. Seeing the wind had decided to set in for the day we 'newbies' gee'd each other on and booked ourselves on a load.

The day was spent working out quite how far back of the pond that we had to make our turns not to over shoot for those of us practicing Zone Accuracy. For those that were practicing Distance then the plan seemed in general to be not so much to worry about how far as that was taking care of itself with the 5,000' elevation and a good tail wind but rather how to stop at the other end without destroying the pilot. Someone had placed an orange marker some way back from the pond and Michael and myself were both edging towards it for our turns and still making the course far to fast to stop in the zones with some fairly 'positive' touch downs needed to stop. Each jump had us looking at each other in dis-belief as we went futher and further back. It turns out that the marker had been laid by Erwin de Jong, NL (more about him later) and was 135 paces from the entry gate!! Load 8 saw both Michael and myself on the last pass and with a final nod towards the insanity of it all and a promise to go even further back the results were pleasing.

Robbie had decided to hook up his loaner from Darren Griggs, a brand new all new sail JVX79 and was seen coming off the course after one particular run with a huge grin on his face that may have been from the fun of it all or it may have just been put there by the wind screaming past at high speed. That will be something to watch out for in comp for sure. AG made a couple of excellent distance runs though he discovered that trying to run it out on one of them came up with the obvious results and a spectacular tumble at the end. There is a lot of dust in the ground which sprays up when you land here but those that are in the know have their cushions firmly placed in the seat of their pants. Im not sure if Dave is running a cushion or not but I imagine he would want to be after the divot he left on one of his runs. I finally got my foot in the water after the first couple of runs found me too scared to due to the speed of it all and wish I had the pleasure of a pond to practice on more often. Way too much fun. Erwin suggested that maybe we should take a couple of buckets up with us to hang out the side on Zone Accuracy to help slow us down. However after seeing the results of his destruction maybe we shouldn't listen to him. He had spent the day practicing Speed and on his second to last run he had picked a slightly too tight line and had to place his feet out as he struck a marker. No foam here but polystyrene and though I didn't get to see it with my own eyes apparently the shower of pieces was impressive as it exploded in a cloud of white as he continued on through. So now we know what 110KG's does at 100km/h to a marker.

AG and Robbie left early to pick up Tom Gilmartin and Niki Jackson. AG and Tom returned in the Bongo Bus but when I called it for the night Robbie and Niki were no-where to be seen, lost on the highway somewhere between here and Johannesburg. I'm sure they will be there by breakfast.

With more people due to arrive tomorrow hopefully we will have the XL back as even with the Turbo in the Cessna there were times when the climb rate was only 100'/minute.

Roll on tomorrow

[Aykay]

Good stuff man keep us updated.

[Gemetria]

Day Four:

It was no surprise that the newest arrivals were the first to arise this morning. A keen desire to get on the pond hid the real reason of a broken sleep cycle. The Aussie contingent has been the first on site each day at JSC and until today have pretty much made up half the DZ population on the weekdays. Today there were a couple of new faces including Jay Moledzki and the first of the Russians.

Conditions have been consistant and the down wind component has stayed making Zone Accuracy the hardest to train for but giving those that were trainging Speed and Distance a great feeling and some real ooomph! It was another full day with the Cessna as there weren't quite enough people to fire up the XL and keep it turning.

As the loads were turning preparations were steadily under way with the DZ being trimmed and tidied in anticipation of the masses that are expected. Around 70+ competitors are booked and already there are signs that many of the Aussie team will be achieving some PB's and showing some real competitiveness. Most of the team are doing around 5-7 jumps a day, focusing on one discipline for the day. Robbie has been doing distance on the full sail JVX but called it early with a bit of a rough landing and deciding that there was no need to push the limits just yet and could save those moments for competition. Michaels speed runs were watched with awe by the newer members of the team while we all tried to pick something up from it. Both are being extremely supportive of the team and guiding us through our first international competition. Dave and I rand Zone Accuracy as did Tom once he had a couple of practice runs. Dave is showing clearly why he placed so well at the nationals this year (4th) but will need to keep an eye on the rear view mirror as Tom on only his third run was screaming through the water dragging all four gates and landing in Zone 3. His tour of Europe earlier this year was obviously good experience considering that at the Nationals he competed in Intermediate on a non-crossbraced and now is mixing it with some of the best in the world. Though even the best can have their off days with jay missing two out of three entry gates today though the speed was impressive.

Landings are proving to be interesting at this altitude and speed with both AG and myself both having a couple of tumbles. To be honest even with a cushion protecting the nether regions it was not always enough.

We finished off the day with a few drinks and then it was off to town for supper in the Bongo Bus. Spur is apparently the answer to Hog's Breath locally and wasn't a bad feed in general. Energy flagged pretty much as soon as people got back to the guest house and most are already in bed. Me next!

[Jiggs]

Awesome mate - keep the post coming.

Cursing that I could not come and play this year but will enjoy Hong Kong next week. Colour me envious !
Hope you all have a fantastic time and get some awesome scores.

Happy swooping!

Griggsy

[Luke Oliver]

Photos sent by Gemetria

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[lavalady]

Photos sent by Gemetria

Any chance you could caption the photos so we all know who is who?

[Gemetria]

Any chance you could caption the photos so we all know who is who?

yellow canopy - Dave Noble
Orange canopy - Tom Gilmartin
side profile no canopy - Niki Jackson (blue canopy)
green canopy - Koppel Solomon
Ol' Blue Eyes - Michael Vaughan

[lavalady]

yellow canopy - Dave Noble
Orange canopy - Tom Gilmartin
side profile no canopy - Niki Jackson (blue canopy)
green canopy - Koppel Solomon
Ol' Blue Eyes - Michael Vaughan

Sweet. Ta.

[Phielix]

...Spur is apparently the answer to Hog's Breath locally and wasn't a bad feed in general.

Just dont eat the thousand island dressing (the orangy/pink sauce on your table or at the salad bar).
The bbq sauce id be careful of too....

I used to work at Spur while at uni.

[Gemetria]

Day Five:

There were few changes to the start of the day but it see a couple less people heading to the DZ than up until now. Michael took a rest day as did AG and they were soon joined by Robbie after he completed one jump.

It looked pretty damn fast to me from where I was stood by the end gate after my first run and I have to say that mine was a personal best of 2.98 seconds over the Speed course. Robbie must have destroyed that but I didn't hear what his time was.

Most of us were on the Speed course today and there were some very happy faces walking back after each load as people dialed in the course and found times that probably just wouldn't have been on the cards back home.

There was the usual pause in the middle of the day when conditions get hot and bumpy and it is just not worth going up. Not to mention the Turbo Cessna was getting slower and slower with the hint of a mis-fire heard through the start of the day. Load times were taking longer and longer and by the end of the day the last load was canned as the plane had to go for maintenance. Probably we will have the XL tomorrow with a late start but at this time we are still not sure of pilot's or which plane we might get. There have been some rumours of a Comp Air and we are all hoping for it but there seems to be some inter-DZ politics there so we are not holding our breath.

There is a really interesting looking canopy that has turned up with Mike Klise (spl?) one of the German contingent. It is called 'The Undertaker' and seems to be the disturbed love child of a Para-glider and a Cross-braced canopy. It has a sort of Pheonix logo all across the bottom skin and while it looked a little twitchy it did seem to show some glide after a reasonable turn and an early recovery onto toggles still led to a fairly impressive distance run. Mind you the shaking going on through the canopy suggests that it is still very much in the proto-type stages as he suggested. Keep an eye out for it though if they do get it right it could just be the challenger to the Velo and the JVX that the builders intend it to be.

The afternoon saw niki heading of for the airport to collect Ronnie and Kieran while just Tom, Dave and myself stayed at the DZ to keep hitting the Speed course. Dave soon managed to show his style and why he is ranked highly in Australia and he seemed to take just a little too much pleasure in posting a 2.97...... good onya mate! Tom was reaching the very low 3 seconds too so the team looks like it is going to be competitive and not just amongst ourselves.

Conditions are very changeable here. not just from take off to landing but sometimes you can get out of the plane and see a down-wind and by the time you get to your turn height its a head-wind. There is a real need to keep an eye on it. Jay has been coaching a couple of the Russians and on his distance runs even with a head-wind was hitting some impressive distances. Tomorrow looks like Distance for a lot of the team so we shall see how that goes.

Ronnie and Kieran have just arrived and the BBQ is fired up. The Jim Beam is open and we have a late start in the morning so check back later for the next update.

[Muz]

There is a really interesting looking canopy that has turned up with Mike Klise (spl?) one of the German contingent. It is called 'The Undertaker' and seems to be the disturbed love child of a Para-glider and a Cross-braced canopy. It has a sort of Pheonix logo all across the bottom skin and while it looked a little twitchy it did seem to show some glide after a reasonable turn and an early recovery onto toggles still led to a fairly impressive distance run.

A new Firebird prototype maybe? They're pretty popular in Germany...

[Gemetria]

Addendum to Day Four:

I forgot to mention that one of the loads on Day four Michael got into the plane followed very closely by a very young chappie about five or six years old. He is the son of Justice, one of the local Africans who works on the DZ packing and doing DZ maintenance. The prop was turning and the lad had a balloon in his hand. When asked what he was doing he said that he wanted to come up in the plane and watch us get out. He even wanted us to take the balloon out for him and let go in the air so it could fly. Obviously the pilot and everyone were trying to get him to get out of the plane and he just said his Daddy had said he could go. It was a very dejected little boy that walked away without a flight that day. Though he seems fairly determined so I expect that he will be back

Oh and Michael really needs to be more careful....
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edited to add: Actually Michael is not the only one needing to be more careful. On one of my speed runs I got there too early and whilst trying to save the run I made a fairly aggressive move for the course from the wrong line and ended up getting through the entry gates but discovered that the land based markers are not quite as flexible as those at Picton and sliding into the exit gate found myself bouncing off like a pin-ball. Luckily I wasn't going as fast as Erwin "Steve" de Jong

[Gemetria]

Day Six:

The population at the guest house is growing and the breakfast table is pretty full now. Actually it is overflowing but everyone still seems to be able to get to their share of a three course breakfast before we head off to the DZ. Today it was a late start with the first load booked for 8:30am. There was an anticipation in the air as the word came down from manifest that the CompAir was on its way. Think about a plane that looks like a small Beaver with a Walter Turbine engine and a Composite body. 5-6 minutes to 6,000' with five on board and the cutest Redheaded lady in cut-off shorts painted on the tail.... Everyone seemed to enjoy the quick turnarounds and the loads were filled and emptied in quick succession.

Ronnie and Kieran faced Snappy for the first time and seemed not to be too disturbed with some careful runs along the edge of the pond. Kieran was heard to comment 'F*ck me you were serious?!' With nine jumps between them on their first day it would seem that they have found their groove and the next few days will see them showing why they are here in the first place. The Australian contingent is almost full with Mikey Howell arriving tonight.

The DZ has doubled in size today with all of the Pom's turning up as well as most of the Canadians and the Germans. I hear Crash has arrived as a Judge representative as well.

It was Tom and I's turn to head to the airport to pick up the latest arrivel, Shane 'Pricey' Price and it turned out to be quite an eventful journey. We left the DZ during the lunch time break while all were having a siesta and using the somewhat inconsistant internet on the iPhone we found our way onto the motorway heading for Johannesburg. Tom was navigating and managed to turn it off at one point and passed it to me to find the settings again. Slowing down to look was a life saver as the car a couple of hundred feet ahead decided to turn itself suddenly into the right hand barrier and with a couple of spins in the middle of the road it came to rest sideways blocking the two left hand lanes. Amazingly no one was hurt. The driver got out and walked around the car looking extremely pissed off and then went back for the child in the back seat?!? The battery was fifty feet further up the highway as were other parts of the car. It looked like no-one was seriously hurt and with plenty of people there to help we carefully made our way past and continued on our way.

Pricey was there and then it was time to navigate off to one of the locals house's where we have all been invited for a BBQ tonight. Once again Tom's skills as a navigator got us there in no time and we were a fair few beers in before the others arrived. At this point I am writing this on our host's computer while the others are all partying.

Tomorrow we are expecting to have the CompAir again for one more day and the full Aussie team will be in training to boot.

If your enjoying hearing how the team are going then please take the time to either post something here to encourage them or on the Facebook pages for all to see. Support your Aussie CP team!!

[robes]

Good stuff love reading about it. could you put a fiver on 'Snappy" for me. i think he has a chance of getting up.
Robes

Day Six:

The population at the guest house is growing and the breakfast table is pretty full now. Actually it is overflowing but everyone still seems to be able to get to their share of a three course breakfast before we head off to the DZ. Today it was a late start with the first load booked for 8:30am. There was an anticipation in the air as the word came down from manifest that the CompAir was on its way. Think about a plane that looks like a small Beaver with a Walter Turbine engine and a Composite body. 5-6 minutes to 6,000' with five on board and the cutest Redheaded lady in cut-off shorts painted on the tail.... Everyone seemed to enjoy the quick turnarounds and the loads were filled and emptied in quick succession.

Ronnie and Kieran faced Snappy for the first time and seemed not to be too disturbed with some careful runs along the edge of the pond. Kieran was heard to comment 'F*ck me you were serious?!' With nine jumps between them on their first day it would seem that they have found their groove and the next few days will see them showing why they are here in the first place. The Australian contingent is almost full with Mikey Howell arriving tonight.

The DZ has doubled in size today with all of the Pom's turning up as well as most of the Canadians and the Germans. I hear Crash has arrived as a Judge representative as well.

It was Tom and I's turn to head to the airport to pick up the latest arrivel, Shane 'Pricey' Price and it turned out to be quite an eventful journey. We left the DZ during the lunch time break while all were having a siesta and using the somewhat inconsistant internet on the iPhone we found our way onto the motorway heading for Johannesburg. Tom was navigating and managed to turn it off at one point and passed it to me to find the settings again. Slowing down to look was a life saver as the car a couple of hundred feet ahead decided to turn itself suddenly into the right hand barrier and with a couple of spins in the middle of the road it came to rest sideways blocking the two left hand lanes. Amazingly no one was hurt. The driver got out and walked around the car looking extremely pissed off and then went back for the child in the back seat?!? The battery was fifty feet further up the highway as were other parts of the car. It looked like no-one was seriously hurt and with plenty of people there to help we carefully made our way past and continued on our way.

Pricey was there and then it was time to navigate off to one of the locals house's where we have all been invited for a BBQ tonight. Once again Tom's skills as a navigator got us there in no time and we were a fair few beers in before the others arrived. At this point I am writing this on our host's computer while the others are all partying.

Tomorrow we are expecting to have the CompAir again for one more day and the full Aussie team will be in training to boot.

If your enjoying hearing how the team are going then please take the time to either post something here to encourage them or on the Facebook pages for all to see. Support your Aussie CP team!!

[John Cook]

If your enjoying hearing how the team are going then please take the time to either post something here to encourage them or on the Facebook pages for all to see. Support your Aussie CP team!!

Enjoying your posts Gemetria, all the best for your's and the teams jumps.
Sounds like the hospitality is pretty good to.

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