How was Equinox? FANTASTIC!
by Brian Dunstan - bdunstan@medisys.com.au At this year's Equinox Boogie in Australia, we had two Caravans and a Skyvan every day and a Cresco most days. The helicopter only made it for one day and was then called away to fight bush fires, and I don't know what happened to the balloon and the tiger moth, I didn't see them at all.
We also got blown out/washed out on two separate days, but that was okay because it gave us a chance to recover from the nightly parties!
There were track jumps (a whole Caravan load tracking in formation), Fiona's legendary 16-way camp (15 jumps), formation loads, night jumps, the speed skydiving competition, inflatable jumps and lots of other fun things happening.
On the down side there were a number of injuries in the first couple of days, one of them serious, as far as I know. The conditions were treacherous on the really hot days and the landing area near the pit was always very congested with people landing in all directions (I kid you not) including downwind. I saw more people smack in over the first few days than I have seen all year at my home DZ. Fortunately most walked away. Personally, I landed out in the student areas where there was much less turbulence and congestion. |
Photo © 2000 Paul Tait |
Manifest did a great job. I would be interested in knowing how many loads were done. It seemed to be 'full on' the whole time, but we rarely had to wait long for a load.
Catering was fair. They have a great little cafe that serves REAL coffee and nice little snacks, but the main meals catering was not as good as our home DZ or other boogies I have attended - but it was okay.
But the main thing was the jumps - which were always great! Lots of people to jump with and lots of great coaches. All loads were to 14,000, which was great, but they weren't cheap. I think it was $30.30 per ticket plus a $3 video ticket for the larger loads.
I never landed out, but lots of others did, so I'll leave it to someone else to talk about the spotting. Perhaps Lenny will even tell us about his river crossing and snake encounters, and Craig might give us some tips about how to land into a herd of kangaroos...
There were lots of other WA people there, but most of them have stayed in the east for holidays while I had to return to work. Hopefully they will have more to say when they return.
The boogie video is supposed to be out in two weeks, so you will be able to see some of it for your self. Hmmm... come to think of it, it might fill in a few blanks in my memory of some of those party nights, which might not be such a good thing!
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