I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning

Two easy steps: Jetstar from Darwin to Singapore, Finnair from Singapore to Helsinki. Of course, this might not be the fastest route for you, unless you already happen to be in the Top End. I was, which meant I was in the passport control queue at Helsinki Airport in less than 19 hours after wheels off at Darwin.

I was flying on a OneWorld ticket, and as Qantas is code sharing on the Jetstar flight, I was actually served a hot meal! I also got a beauty bag full of useless goodies, such as single-use socks that will have covered your feet in ugly black fluff by the time you take them off; to be fair, the ear plugs might come in handy one day. This was notable mainly because neither Finnair nor, I think, Qantas actually hand out stuff like ear plugs and eye shades (and certainly not inflatable travel cushions) any longer.

Parasummer 2010 is done and dusted, and I’m detoxed enough to put a few words down. What goes down at the boogie stays at the boogie, so what you’re getting is the “sanitised for your convenience” version, but if you’ve been to a boogie anywhere you can probably fill in the blanks.

A total of 111 jumpers from all over the world showed up for the boogie. Aussies were somewhat surprisingly the 4th largest contingent, after the hosts, Finns and Swedes, as there were 2 of us present.

The jumping took place at Pärnu airport, which obviously used to be run by the Soviet air force back in the day, as it was littered with well-camouflaged hangars. One of the hangars acted as the packing area, and despite the slight dampness provided a welcome respite from the 30C+ heat outside.

There were two jump ships: a Turbolet and an Islander. Most of the jumps were done from the Let, which is a twin-turbine side-door plane that takes 16 jumpers to 4 km (about 13000 ft) in about 15 minutes. The Let was hired specially for the boogie, as it is normally based in Hungary. The Islander, which serves as the club’s regular jump ship, is a twin piston engine 10-jumper plane, also with a side door, that feels a lot like a slightly larger C-182 or a C-206.

Most of the jumpers stayed at Jõekääru camping area, which had heaps of cabins and ample room for those cheap enough (such as yours truly) to insist staying in a tent. I had borrowed a “$30 Aldi special” tent, which probably would have held water just fine, had I not forgotten to close the flap for the biggest torrent of water I have ever witnessed. The next day was sunny though, so I was able to dry out my gear and keep on boogieing.

I’d be willing to bet that the lingerie 8-way that was broadcast on most if not all Estonian TV channels did wonders for the financial welfare of Eesti Langevarjuklubi, as eager tandem and AFF students must be keeping their phone lines ringing red hot. A jumper who shall remain nameless speculated that all the other hangars at the airfield are filled with ugly babies.

Sauna

Another jumper who shall remain nameless – let’s just call him “an antipodean with a solar panel for a sex machine” – had his fair share of culture shock the first night, when everyone piled into the sauna; not only was it his first time in a sauna, but he had a hard time coming to terms with the concept of co-ed sauna bathing. Even yours truly, who grew up in the region, seems to have been away long enough to have all but forgotten… but I digress. Our intrepid native antipodean sussed it out eventually, so all was well.

The camping area also had a smoke sauna. For those less familiar with the intricacies of sauna bathing, a smoke sauna is a traditional kind of sauna that has no chimney – it fills with smoke as it is heated, and all the walls are covered in soot, so don’t wear your Sunday best; in fact, don’t wear a thing. The hosts were somewhat surprised to learn that smoke saunas are not unknown on the other side of the Gulf of Finland either – they must have thought it to be uniquely Estonian. Incidentally, here’s a hot (sic) tip; let the eager beavers fry their ears first, the heat keeps for a long time and it’s much more pleasant inside when the temperature has gone down a bit.

Cypres demo

“If you know someone whose Cypres has fired and they told you they heard a loud bang, well, they heard wrong.” These were the words of the man from Cypres just seconds before a demo cutter disintegrated with a loud BANG!

“It’s never done that before…” No worries mate, they’re man-made, these things happen. I’d be willing to bet that he’s going to edit the script slightly for the next demo though.

Flight Club

Stephan Lipp, one of the forces behind New Zealand Skydiving School, was on hand to do one-on-one freefly coaching for those keen to take it to the next level. His swoops were a marvel of German precision, skimming the taxiway and landing always on the exact same spot regardless of the wind.

Mr. Bird-Man, aka Jari Kuosma, did his 5000th jump at the boogie and celebrated accordingly. Visa Parviainen, infamous for his rocket-boosted wingsuiting as seen on Youtube, was also in attendance and brought his pimped out “Lordi” wingsuit, modelled here by Erkka the Jet Fighter Pilot.

Comp Air

The boys from Räyskälä dropped by and jumped in from their pride and joy, the bright yellow OH-XDZ, a Comp Air built from a kit by two club members. Only took them 10000 hours to build it too. The Comp Air is the fastest and baddest jump ship in Finland – looking forward to giving it a go before I head back to sunny Queensland.

Flatfly…

Seriously guys, if your ad says you’ve got a load organiser for 16-ways who then organises not a single load and buggers off halfway through the boogie – it’s not a good look. I wasn’t the only out-of-towner to be there mainly for the imaginary 16-ways either.

There were a few flatties around though, so I spent the week doing mostly 4-ways with a few smaller and bigger ones thrown in, including a handful of 8-ways on Friday which ran the gamut from beautiful to interesting. One of the 4-ways was also my 400th jump, an offense for which I obviously had to shout a carton of Saku.

Summary

What can I say, a great boogie! Made lots of new friends, learned new things – Finnish skydiving jargon in particular, did heaps of fun jumps (25 in total), partied a lot with awesomely cool people… in short, got my money’s worth. I’d say that the only thing that needs to be seriously looked into is flatfly load organising. It looks like I’ll unfortunately have to give next Parasummer a miss, as Rel Week is on at the same time in Batchelor, but I’ll do my very best to be back for Parasummer 2012. As they say in Estonia: VABALANGEMINE!

PS: Thanks to Wolli, I now know a bit of practical Estonian as well: “Vabandage, kust veeras mees siin linnas nikku saab?”

Alcatraz Island, with San Francisco in the background

Golden Gate Bridge

As surely as day follows night, there are certain sights every tourist in San Francisco must tick off the list. The Golden Gate bridge would have been one of them, if not for the thick fog covering practically all of it. I did get to Fort Point, but stopped short of jumping into San Francisco Bay all Kim Novak-like.

One of the cozy and inviting cell blocks inside Alcatraz penitentiary

Alcatraz, however, was just as welcoming as I thought it would be, fog or no fog. I was mildly surprised to learn that the island was squatted by Native Americans for a while, but then again, I had just barely been born at the time and was still reeling too much from the experience to be all that interested in world affairs. I would hazard a guess that back in the days of the federal penitentiary, not too many Native Americans were all that keen to enjoy an extended stay.

Anyway, as a tourist attraction I’d say Alcatraz is well worth a visit for both history and movie buffs, seeing as the island has starred in so many wonderful and not-so-wonderful movies. Bring a jumper, it can be mighty windy.

And by the way, I don’t think Tim Curry ever did much time in Alcatraz, but perhaps he should have along with the rest of the cast of McHale’s Navy.

“The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain, but apparently Snopes disagrees. Regardless of origin, I was in violent agreement as I braved the streets of San Francisco wearing 4 layers of clothing to protect my torso from the elements and sorely lamenting the fact that I didn’t pack any long johns. Perhaps I should have rummaged through the wonderful selection of men’s attire at Goodwill a bit longer.

I wish I’d had my camera at the ready while walking down Mission, because then I could have immortalized the two elderly paisanos in immaculate bright white cowboy outfits, one carrying a guitarrón, the other a guitar on his back. I didn’t, so we’ll have to make do with this shot I took a bit later on.

Castro

A street sign near Castro

As you perhaps can figure out from the flying banners and the neon sign, ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Castro. As luck would have it, a few weeks later, on the flight between Bangkok and Sydney, Qantas showed Gus van Sant’s Milk, the Harvey Milk bio pic in which the Castro is practically a member of the cast. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Castro Theatre

I stopped for lunch at the Cove Cafe, right across the street from the Castro Theatre. The eggs Benedict was as it usually is – creamy and rich – but what sets the Cove apart in the neighborhood diner category is the extremely friendly yet not imposing service. As someone on yelp.com put it, “The fellas here are super-friendly in an unforced way. They make me feel like a relative who doesn’t owe them money.” For an unforgettable culinary experience, go elsewhere. For a relaxing stop in the middle of a day of extreme sightseeing, make a pit stop at the Cove, dig into the hash browns and marvel at the plasma screen showing pictures of the clientele from days gone by while sipping coffee from a bottomless cup (I think I had about six refills).

Ikis and his San Francisco souvenir

One of the waiters was wearing a T-shirt that said “C.O.C. (Cove on Castro) – Would you like a hot one?” on the back. Unfortunately they’d run out of stock, but I was told that Injeanious next door would most probably have something else that would do the trick. They did.

Praise Jah, man!

I’ve never been much of a churchgoer, to put it mildly. Even so, for years I’ve had a dream of attending Sunday service at the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco. Sometimes dreams do come true, and so it was on this sunny May day that having jumped off the grueling 13-hour flight from Sydney and dropped my bags off at the hotel, I suddenly found myself warming the back pew.

Praise the Lord and pass the French fries!

The service was composed of two parts. For the first two hours, the church band played what can only be described as gospel music according to Coltrane. It was quite obvious that they had not only studied Coltrane’s music but also internalised the spirituality that St. John had wanted to express. The last hour was taken up by a funny and poignant sermon from Archbishop King, who was not too shabby on the tenor sax either. If you’re in San Francisco on a Sunday and have a few hours to spare, you could do much worse than to stop by at the service and get some worship action happening – and I say this as a devout agnostic. How’s that for sitting on the fence? You can ask for your money back tomorrow.

Darn, just missed out on the Allman Bros.

As if this exalted experience hadn’t been enough for one day, I also had tickets to see Ben Folds at the fabulous Fox Theater in Oakland. I was kind of hoping to hear The Last Polka, but at least he played Narcolepsy, so all is well. Check out Pete Rosenblum’s pics from the gig on Flickr.