Skydive Dallas - Texas

When I was younger the only impression I had of Dallas and Texas is what I had seen on the TV watching such as Dallas and cowboy films. The reality, certainly in the place I am staying is quite different. I am staying just outside of a small town called Whitewright. Its about 70 miles north east of the city of Dallas. Its very much a country and farming area. Its much greener than I expected, very flat but nicely broken up by fields, areas of trees and small communities. The weather is quite hot and the humidity can be quite high also. I thought it would have been hotter, but I must say I like the climate here - I could live with this.

I am staying on the DZ at Skydive Dallas, the bunkhouse accommodation is free and there are good shower facilities. So not a bad start. As ever the people are the stars. Everyone has gone out of there way to be friendly and have been interested in my trip and I have had lots of opportunities to talk about NACC and its work.

Now more about the DZ, as I said its set out in the countryside, its on a large site with a number of large landing areas. The facilities include "The Dive" cafe which is run by Millie, and assisted by Snow and JD. There are two large indoor packing areas, there is a Pro Shop run by Debbie, Debbies husband Bo also works at the DZ.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was just how clean everything is, the packing areas are all carpeted and they were spotless. Jose is the man responsible for the way the place looks, he is up bright and early each day and if by magic the place is clean at the start of the new day. Now the aircraft. They have two main aircraft a Twin Otter and a Cessna Caravan. They operate normally up to 13,500. They also have a C182 but that was not in service at the moment.

Over this past weekend the centre has been very busy with experienced skydivers, AFF and Tandems and the two aircraft were on the go most of the time. The DZ is open five days a week closed on Tuesday and Wednesday One thing that you notice here and in other DZ's in the USA is the degree to which organisers are used, for me its been great, particularly here in Skydive Dallas I have hardly jumped alone and my own personal skydiving had improved (still a long way to go) more than its done in years. Brett and Tom were two of the load organisers I jumped with and I learnt a lot from them. There is certainly no shortage of progression training going on, its a great place to learn.

They have just appointed a new manger her Johnny Kuczaj who has only been in post a week, Johhny and his partner Laura have been really kind and helpful while I have been here and I wish them both well for the future. There have been so many people I have met in the short time I have been here that I simply cannot fit everyone in, Carol who is the owner of the DZ helped arrange with Laura for a Journalist called Chana Willis from the Whitewright Rose to come along and hear my storey. Chana brought her two sons along to the DZ with her and I was invited that night along to their local school to watch the presentation of the new football team (American). After the presentation, to which the whole town seemed to turn out to, we all went along to a local Mexican Restaurant for a meal. Texas hospitality is very much alive and well.

I went into the local town of Wrightwright at lunch time to-day, I just went in for a late breakfast but thanks to Cathy Pierce in the local information centre I ended up being interviewed by another journalist Tabetha Snow from the "The Whitewright Sun". So once again I was able to tell my storey.

I have been here only five days so far and so much seems to have happened, I feel as though I have been here longer but not in a negative way. I actually leave to-morrow Wed. 27th Vancouver and the final leg of my trip.

I just want to end with a couple of things. Some of you will remember the Otis Redding song "Sitting on the Dock of a Bay". Well there is no bay here, but for the past two nights I have sat down in the quiet at the end of the day looking over the DZ and watching the sun go down, it really is so peaceful. Finally this morning when I started to write this up this part of my blog up there was a bird picking over the grass cuttings for grubs, its was a very elegant Crane, I have included a picture in the attached photographs. john 26/8

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San Francisco

There was one thing I wanted to do when I planned the trip was to see San Francisco simply as a tourist. I moved from Bay Area Skydiving on Monday the 18th to a place on the coast Called Point Montara Lighthouse. Its a real lighthouse and its also a hostel. I had room to myself which was called the the Watch Room and it looked directly out to sea. Point Montara is about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Point Montara provides very reasonably priced accommodation for all ages, families included.

So my plan was to drive to the nearest railway station and get the train into the city. This I did, they have a system of trains called BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). Its a bit like the Metro at home or the Underground in London.

I spent a day and a half having a good look around. Ever since I saw the film Bullet with Steve McQueen I wanted to look around the streets and see the Golden Gate Bridge. I did lots of walking, had a ride on one of the famous trams, went up Coit Tower, went round China Town, visited Pier 39, went to the Wells Fargo Museum, took over a 100 photo's and was absolutely knackered. There is just so much to see and I could have spent so much longer there. My only regret is that I did not get very close to the Golden Gate Bridge, however it was quite foggy the closer you got to the bridge so perhaps it was as well. I did however get to see Alcatraz from the ferry, we actually got quite close.

I have attached quite a number of pictures just to give you a bit of an idea what its like. Once again I hope you like them. I am in Texas now at Skydive Dallas, I will update my blog with this in the next couple of days. john 23/8

Bay Area Skydiving - Nr San Francisco

On the 14th August I moved onto San Francisco from LA. I was heading for Bay Area Skydiving which is at a place called Byron which is 60 miles East of San Francisco. Fortunately this time my journey was uneventful and I got my luggage back without delay which was a great relief. The manager at the DZ had kindly asked one of the club jumpers Carrol Shaw if I could stay in his trailer for a few days and Carrol kindly agreed. Carrol is quite a guy, not only is he a good skydiver and coach he also is quite a cook and more or less fed the DZ over the last weekend.

The first thing that hits you when you get here is the heat, over Friday and Saturday is was over 100 degrees F. at times. Compared to Perris its quite small in a physical sense but they do have rather a nice array of aeroplanes, A PAC XL, a King Air and a Cessna 206. While I have been here I have been jumping out of the PAC. The centre is open everyday except Monday and Tuesday. It was fairly quiet on the Friday I was here but the place comes alive at the weekend. There are the usual tandems but there is a large core of fun jumpers and everyone seems to know everyone else. I did not have a problem with being here on my own and was soon mixing with pretty well everyone. The geography of the DZ means that at certain times of the day it can get quite windy, but the Byron Boys as they are know have learnt to cope with the wind, they can actually jump in winds up to 30 mph here (not students). Its a very open area, mainly scrub land where the landing area is but it is very large. I have attached some still pictures which I took as I was going up in the aircraft to give you some idea of the general area. My stay here has been quite short so the number of jumps I have made here was only 6. However I have achieved one of my objectives for the trip. I did my 100th Jump of the trip on Sat. 16th August. I have done over 1,000,000 feet in descents and about 850,000 in freefall - I hope to get that to over a 1,000,000 before I end my journey. As usual I have attached some photographs, there are a couple of the sunset at the end of last week which I hope you like. Finally I have once again been shown great friendship and kindness by all at the DZ and met some really nice people. I am moving on to-day to a hostel on the coast south of San Francisco so that I can do some sightseeing before I move off again on Thursday, next stop Dallas. john 18/8

Goodbye Perris

On Thursday 14th August I left Perris to head for San Francisco. I have done more jumps at Perris than anywhere else so far on my trip, 20 in total including the balloon jump. The owners of Perris were kind enough to let me have the first 4 jumps free in view of the NACC cause. I always knew I would do more jumping in the USA than anywhere else, particularly at ZHills (17 jumps) and Perris. Again at Perris I have learnt more about my own skydiving and what I need to do to improve things - looks like I will be wearing a lot of weight when I jump FS in future. The sit flying I started in ZHills is coming along quite well now, thanks to the initial coaching from Pip. I will keep working on that going forward.
I have been staying at Dennis Sattlers house, its been really good, a real home from home for me. Dennis had a last minute surprise for me in that he gave me $100 for NACC. Again I continue to be surprised by the generosity of people. john 15/8

Balloon Jump

Early yesterday morning I did a jump from a balloon over the the DZ in Perris Valley. I was up at 4.45 to get to the DZ for 5.45am. The balloon jump was not planned and the opportunity came the previous afternoon. The conditions were perfect, we actually went up to 10,000 feet. When I did the jump I did it with two new friends Tom and Tim we left the balloon to-gether. Its an incredible experience, not at all like jumping out of a plane. It was also my 800th Skydive. I hope you like the pictures. john 13/8

Skydive Elsinore

When I was planning my trip I had not realised just how close Skydive Elsinore was to Perris. You can actually see Lake Elsinore very clearly on the way up in the plane at Perris. So to-day I went and spent the day there to do jumping. The DZ is not as big as Perris but by UK standards its big. They have two Twin Otter aircraft which can take up to 22 people each. As ever when I arrived I got all of the paperwork out of the way and was introduced to various members of staff to get a brief and so on.

The skydive centre is about a mile or so from the lake, the landing area is very large, they also have a swoop pond. Again the weather was very hot, I guess in the 90's again to-day. I did three jumps, one just to get my bearings, but for the other two I joined a lady called Julia who was doing some FS training for small groups. So I got on a couple of 4 ways with Julia, they went quite well and were good fun. Its a very friendly DZ, I didn't have any trouble in finding people to speak to.

As I was leaving I went into the Square One shop to buy a T shirt, by chance I was served by a very nice lady who turned out to be somewhat a pathfinder in women's skydiving. Her nickname I found out later is Purple Patty, I explained why I was there and the purpose of my journey. Patty was really interested and already had some knowledge of Crohns disease. When I got back to Dennis's house I checked on the Internet to find out more about Patty. She has over 4,000 jumps and has done some really fantastic things in her skydiving career. Patty asked if she could sign my log which is how I found out who she was. Patty insisted on giving me a hug before I left, the only regret I have is I should have got a picture. On the note of pictures I have attached some photographs which I took while I was there. john 10/8