[rec.skydiving] Travelling and Jumping

lbr@clear.com (Lon Ricker) (05/25/91)

Looking for a few suggestions here:

I'm lucky enough to have a job where I can travel, and
often I can plan the trip to end on Friday, so I take my
gear and head to the nearest drop zone (anywhere within
3 hours is fine).  Now comes the problem.

I'm not a famous sky god, and I'm not female (no disrespect
meant, but lets face the facts here...), so how do I go
about finding people to jump with?  I've been to places with
4-5 place Cesnas, and to places with 13-21 place Westwinds and
Twin Otters, and neither seems easy.

Walking into a place new, you don't know who the teams are,
who the whuffos are, or who the death flyers are.  Also,
its hard to just walk up to someone and say "wanna jump".

I`ve had manifesters announce on PAs, "there's a jumper here
looking for someone to jump with", but that doesn't usually
get much interest either.

So, any suggestions?  Luckily by the second day I've usually 
been able to find a person or two to "latch on to", 
to jump with, but I don't always feel comfortable with this, 
and it makes for a long first day, trying to find that person.

(I can tell specifics about experiences load organizers and 
the such if anyone is interested.)

I've got 115 jumps, and I don't think it has to do with my
(in)ability, as once I find people we continue to jump.
Every place I've been likes to boast "we're one of the 
friendliest places to jump", but until you get to know folks
(and buy the beer) its not always true.

Any suggestions would be *greatly* appreciated.

Lon Ricker
lbr@clear.com