Last Sunday I went and jumped Skydive Vancouver, as I have been traveling full time I have jumped 10 different dropzones in 7 different states in 2 different countries and Vancouver was by far the most disorganized. Every dropzone has minor flaws and issues, even the smallest of the dropzones have its perks and downfalls, but Vancouver was basically all revolving around one old, very overwhelmed, and distracted man who happened to be the owner. His lack of faith in his tandem instructors had him briefing and gearing up all the tandem students, organizing all the loads, briefing new fun jumpers, touching base with students, and not to mention he is the only person who can give out rental gear.

I have to pay to rent gear at every dropzone as I have not had the funds to buy my own rig yet, as a paying customer it shouldn’t take an hour and a half after I have already been briefed to get gear, something that would take about a minute of someone’s time to get. The man named Jerry kept telling me he was too busy to get me the rig I needed and I just sat around waiting while he prepped tandem after tandem student, something that their tandem instructor should be doing. Not to mention every time I approached him he asked me the same question of “how many jumps” I had and had the audacity to ask “why I don’t have my own gear” which is pretty embarrassing to say I don’t have the money for it.

Finally I told the right person that I had been waiting so long to get a rig they went and grabbed jerry’s Son who was the only other person out of the 30 tandem instructors who could grab the rig from off the wall and hand it to me. After I got my rig I needed to buy a jump ticket(which no one told me about) and while I was in the office jerrys wife asked where my blue paper was(what blue paper no one gave me or said anything about that) so I bypassed it because of disorganization. After I had my jump ticket I started organizing with the new friend I had planned to jump with, after getting kicked off a load for him not having is canopy packed in time and finally getting geared up and on another load, we finally were called to approach the plane, there was no way to know where your plane was, how much time you had except from overwhelmed ol jerry who was only “pretty good” at making sure you got on your plane, but I made it by watching others cues.

Then we were on our way up to altitude which was about 12,000ft in the air where winds were really high and our cue to get out of the plane was from a tandem instructor who told us to get out a little early. The free fall was incredibly fun and my new friend knight and I got to dock, turn and orbit each other until about 5,000ft where we split and tracked opposite directions and I pulled my parachute about 3,600ft which was a little later than my original plan of 4,500ft but still above my lowest pull altitude of 3,000ft. But because I pulled low I was trapped on the wrong side of the wind and knew I wouldn’t be able to make it back to the dropzone landing area so I saw an out field and made a decision to land off for the very first time. It was honestly no big deal and I am glad I experienced an off landing, after landing my parachute perfectly I picked up all the canopy material along with my pilot chute and D-bag and walked all the way around a large corn field and made it back to the dropzone about 20mins later.

Even with all the disorganization and my off landing, the jump was still fun, skydiving is a form of therapy for me, it can take away your worry and fears and take you to the present moment of observation in a quiet meditative state.