Eloy day 1

Hi,

Sorry for the late update, but we had a very busy 1st day and the house we rented, does not have wireless internet. By the time we were finished last night, the bar at Skydive Arizona was already closed.

After a hell of a trip, we finally arrived at Phoenix airport at 10:45pm. We had been on the way for 20 hours and Luc and Wesley even longer, since they flew from Brussels to Amsterdam first… We had a long stop-over in Detroit, where we were on the ground for 6 hours. Thomas Hughes, our coach, was already waiting for us at the baggage claim. He flew in, the same evening from San Diego.

Bagage checked and 2 bags missing… mine. After reporting to the lost baggage service, they told me that they fell of the cart from the plane to the terminal. Only, my bags ??? What are the odds. The good news was definitely, that they were in Phoenix.

Time to pick up the car and drive to our final destination and home for the next 10 days. What a car. Jacco had rented the largest van possible. It seemed necessary with 6 persons and 12 bags that need to fit in it.

Short night’s rest and at 8:00am we left for the dropzone. First we had breakfast and settled the necessary paperwork at manifest. Sign a million wavers and receive a thorough briefing of what to do and not to do around the dropzone…

After that, we finally started doing what we came here for. Thomas had a couple of easy jumps for us in mind. This were our first jumps together and for most of us the first ones in 5 months. No need to say that we felt kind or rusty. Nevertheless, all of us were very happy to be skydiving again.

The exits are challenging for now and we are trying to find the good rhythm and balance, but we will work this out. Already the last jumps were very better than the first ones.

We made 8 jumps and decided then to do some shopping in order to have at least food and drinks to make it through the day.

At 8:00pm we had an hour tunnel planned and we did 2-on-2’s with Thomas and Gary Beyer. Thomas wanted us to focus on the technicality of the jumps and go really slow, include stops and concentrate on intermediate pictures and stages. This worked out really well and we received invaluable information on the block moves and they felt already a lot more comfortable and controlled.

At 10:30 we got back to the house and everyone was very tired and we went to sleep immediately.

Stay tuned for new updates and hopefully pictures.

Sven out !