About forty or so people descended on Skydive Oz to spend the days between Christmas and New Year jumping over the South Coast of NSW. It was a super chilled out vibe with jumpers arriving from all over including North Coast of NSW, as well as a good half dozen from Victoria and a few from South Australia.
As a non-boogie boogie, ‘Summer on the Beach’ rocked. The numbers were just right. Loads kept turning but you never felt like you were waiting for a jump, or being rushed to get on the plane either. I hooked up with some other baby wingsuiters, Lachy and Josh and we spent an awesome few days working on our skills together with some coaching from DZ Dan (yerrr, you’ll be right just navigate by the sun).
The weather was mostly good and occasionally spectacular, but on those days where the winds did pick up, I just grabbed a beer and ended up in the river chewing the fat and copping some rays, before getting back into the jumping. When there was too much cloud to wingsuit I hopped on a B-Rel or two, although Christmas has turned me into a right fatso pork chop. My exit weight is just shy of 120kgs so I was struggling to stay in formation even wearing the biggest clown suit I could find. Still, I think I helped, rather than hindered.
The one day the weather did turn a bit feral, I organised a sit down with Chris ‘Douggs’ McDougall who everyone will know from Learn To Base Jump. The man is a legend. Everyone was spell bound and hung off his every word as he spoke about his skydiving and base-jumping career. I’m really hoping to make a longer blog about the conversation we had with him, but it’ll take me a while to get to the video edited and sound sorted. Stay tuned for now. Save to say, it was inspiring just listening to his story and really puts a new perspective on life. Man, I’m almost ready to sign up for LTBJ myself 😊
It was also cool bumping into some Bigway Jumpers who I hadn’t seen since we set the Australian record at Perris a few years back. Kelly, Sandy, Nigel, and Alan were all flying the Bigway flag at Moo getting a few new jumpers in on the action as well as Douggs himself 😊
New Year’s Eve was a heaps good day for jumping. I carried on flying the bat suit with Lachy and Josh before everyone had fun with beach landings, organised by Jules. I got confused and messed up the landing direction so ended up doing a down winder (that’s a carton) right past the surf life savers. Totally worth it thought just to see the look on their faces.
Best effort goes to Josh though who jumped in a barely family friendly gimp suit but looked the dog’s bollocks ha ha ha. Also, a big shout out to Tony Harrington whose jumps on the Saturday took him to the top of the Moruya fun jumper league table for the year (249, in case you were wondering). Tony also won Moruya Skydivers Club membership draw for the year – worth a tidy ten pack!
I could see that New Year’s Eve was shaping up to be mental, although I already had plans back in Canberra, so I left them at the DZ returning the following afternoon to take in the carnage. A lot of very sorry souls power napping their way through the day waiting for jumps the next day.
Monday was bloody awesome. The weather was perfect, and everyone jumped as hard as they could, although a few people had to take off in the afternoon, including myself. Overall, it was a magic few days. You really couldn’t beat the crowd. Super friendly, super chill but super frothy. It was heaps good and I’ll definitely be heading back Christmas 2023!
Thanks to all the legends down at Skydive Oz for hosting such an epic few days and thank to Tony and Kelly for the pics!
Marcus
PS How could I forget to mention Michael Jaber. You’ve heard of the Liver King? Well let me introduce you to the Sleep King. Young Jabba could be found asleep (either touching himself or giving his security squishy a hug) at random times throughout the boogie. How he managed to get his B-Rels done remains a mystery. Still, he’s a top bloke and even got me down the gym over a skydiving weekend. Get them gainz.
