South Africa

Arrived in Cape Town just before 8 am yesterday -the aircraft I flew in was a Boeing 747 I have never been in one of these before - have got to say I am pleased I don't have long legs.
Discovered one of my cases had been very badly damaged somewhere between Newcastle and arriving in Cape Town - ironically the case was marked as fragile for me when it was checked in as it had my parachute in it. However the staff at BA in Cape Town airport were very helpful and gave me a brand new case to replace the one that was damaged.
I am staying at a place called Elements Lodge in a town called Blaauwberg just outside of Cape Town. Elements is run by a young couple called Esther and Remo. Remo comes from Switzerland and he collected me from the Airport, Esther comes from Liechtenstein and they set up the business 4 years ago. They are a smashing couple and are really looking after me well.
Now to the parachuting, the weather here is not great at the moment and the forecast for the rest of the weekend is not good. However I contacted Mark Bellingham the Chief Instructor at Skydive Cape Town. In view of the forecast I decided to go out to the DZ yesterday afternoon. Its about 15 miles from where I am staying - Esther had previously organised a hire car for me so transport was not a problem. I went to the DZ mid afternoon.
The DZ is about 2 miles off the highway along a dirt road, so I had to drive slowly and take it careful with the car. Mark checked all of my documents, the Parachute Association of South Africa had given me free membership for 90 days. Thanks to Neeve at PASA my membership card was waiting for me at the DZ.
Well I did get to jump, I joined two tandems and Sean the cameraman in a Cessna 206 and went up to 9,000 feet. The weather was a bit grey so I could not see table mountain but I did get a good view of the countryside and more importantly for this first jump I could see the DZ (there is almost nothing worse than not being able to see where you are and not having a clue where to land). However all went well and I had a good landing in the place I wanted to land. The icing on the cake was the jump was free in view of the cause - thank Mark.
It looks doubtful that I will get any jumping in this weekend because of the weather, wind and rain are forecast, but the DZ is open all week, hopefully the weather will break and I will get in some jumps during the week.
I had hoped it is the people I meet that will in a very big way make the trip for me - I have not been disappointed - everyone has been very helpful and friendly and have all wanted to know more about the trip.
That's all for now john 10/5