Arrived at the dropzone nice and early, even though it was the morning after a night out, and i woke up an hour and a half away, and its pretty cloudy, but, looks like when the clouds clear, will be jumping on the north landing area. The first lift goes up, with a 100 jump limit in place, but once they land, the limits lifted, and everyones on lift2 🙂

The plan for this jump, it to practice being stable on my back, i know its going to be cold though, i only have a T-shirt under my jump suit, and the usual excitement feeling in the chest is there, making it feel colder. Im told ill be jumping a slightly smaller 230 canopy, so get it all ready, then as theres so many on the lift, im swapped back to the 240. In the plane on the way up, i go through it in my head, dive out, few rolls then flip over onto my back. Get to altitude, doors open, and im out, dive out rolled in a ball, then open myself out and onto my back. I try to go into a backloop, from being flat on my back, which didnt work at all like i thought it would, and i ended up spinning all over the place, got myself stable and back on my belly, and thats when the wind hit me right in the face. I spent the last 1500 feet with my hands in front of my face to block out the wind, before opening at 3,500 feet. As soon as the canopy was open, i grabbed one of the rear risers, and yanked it, thats another avoidance manouvure ticked off the paperwork, then look for my landing zone. I see the cross and arrow, but cant see the blue flags to the side of them where they normally are, but, do see to small ‘square things’ a bit further away, this must be the marked area for us, so i setup myself to land there. While under the canopy, i see 2 others landing in the same area, so am happy that this is right. As im on my final approach, i see that theyre not actually markers, but small concrete blocks, but, land within my intended area, and flare nicely for a good standing up landing.

Speaking with the others who landed there, they all thought the same thing, that as the blue flags werent out, that these 2 ‘markers’ were meant for us instead, but, it also shows that we are getting better at picking our spots to land 🙂