Touch down in The Algarve

A skydiver’s greatest enemy, especially in the UK, is inclement weather. So for the first ever international tour of IC Skydiving we followed the sun to Skydive Algarve in Portugal, which like our own club has recently expanded to new levels of successful operation with the acquirement of a new plane and procurement of a new team of world expert instructors and dropzone managers.

The dropzone was nice enough to even provide us with discount rates for both beginner AFF (Accelerated FreeFall) courses (300€ off a 1800€ course) and individual jumps (28€ instead of 30€) for our licensed members.

Of course, while the main intention of the trip was to improve our skydiving skills and get people progressing through their qualifications, we started the trip with a day of sightseeing in Lisbon to get our bearings and get to know each other, apart from novice member Hassan starting off a trip tradition of wandering off and disappearing at crucial moments.

However, once he’d gone on treks for swimming shorts, socks and chewing gum, we headed south to the dropzone. It was jump after jump for every member, and most nights ended with exhausted skydivers passing out by the house pool after dinner. Trip officer José even managed to miss his birthday – too busy jumping!

Along with a regular core of club jumpers, we were accompanied by a small number of guests of the club – namely, two alumni who could provide assistance and training, for no cost, in things like formation skydiving and license progression, and four members of our allied skydiving club at the University of London, including their current and future presidents, solidifying our growing partnership.

We were all super sad to say goodbye to the dropzone and all the skydivers. We could have been sadder though, as we’d had beautiful weather almost all week and the forecast for the following week was atrocious. So the schadenfreude kept us all a bit happier.

By the conclusion of the trip, 5 people had earnt their A license, everyone had rapidly growing jump numbers by everyone and we had participated in the first official team training jump in Imperial history!

Arrival in Lisbon

We landed in Lisbon at lunchtime, before checking-in to a hostel in the “nightlife” district. Guided by locals, we had a traditional Portuguese meal followed by a night on the town, where everyone properly got to know each other and formed a convivial spirit that would be carried forwards through the rest of the trip. After a late breakfast of the world-famous Portuguese pastry, Pasteis de Nata, we drove 4 hours south in convoy, to move in to our shared villa in the Algarve, only 15 minutes’ drive from the dropzone.

José enforced a tour playlist of garage and dubstep music in his car, and Lucy Marriott went from detesting the genres at the beginning of the trip, to aggressively demanding them after a couple of days. Pippa countered by playing rock and metal in her car, while Isaac’s car had Tchaikovsky and Debussy.

The group was pressed for time to finish breakfast and get to the airport to collect the hire cars when we realised that Hassan had wandered off to find swimming shorts. He ended up buying socks. Later, at the airport, he disappeared again to find gum, starting a tradition that would continue throughout the trip.

In the Algarve, after the boring but necessary registration process, and with the day’sjumping finished before we could get there, a barbeque feast was provided by the group’s more culinary members, followed by an early night, ready for a week of non-stop skydiving.

Hitting the dropzone

The five student skydivers spent the first day doing their intensive ground school training, while some of the experienced members got a taste of the incredible things the dropzone had to offer by landing on the beach, at sunset!

Many milestones were reached on the second day.with Jonny successfully completing his formation rating, the first team jump ever in Imperial College Skydiving’s history was completed with great success. Additionally, Isaac reached the milestone of 100 jumps, which was celebrated in fitting style with what can only be described as aerial chaos (involving a Power Rangers morphsuit, a potato and a “hotdog-in-a-blender” configuration).

After Hassan had popped off for breakfast, our AFF students were going to get their morning refresher briefing, before doing their first jump! All of our beginners got 3 jumps in this day! Day two was also trip officer José’s birthday! He forgot all about it though, as he was too busy jumping (we reminded him later on in the bar).

Rain, showers and fruit theft

Wednesday saw continued progression by everyone, particularly from the students, with Hassan and Iulian successfully reaching fully-solo standard, with the minimum requirement of 7 jumps.

Three members departed the group on the fourth day to return home. Back at the dropzone, a passing front meant unfavourable weather for beginners after the morning, which slowed progress for the students. The remaining experienced skydivers managed to get a few jumps in between showers. Later on in the day, both Lucys completed level 7 and went solo standard! Hassan wandered into Alvor town and found a fruit he hadn’t seen since he was in Jordan around this time last year, and brought some back to the dropzone to show us. He told us he had “borrowed” them from a Portuguese farmer. Pippa hit 100 jumps, and Isaac liked Lisbon so much he missed his flight. Oops.

Solo Jumping

By Friday, all of the novices were onto jumping solo, which meant no more waiting around for available instructors. This put them at a stage that allowed them to jump in any dropzone around the world! Nicole decided that landing on the designated landing area was too mainstream (high winds forced her to drift off) and so landed (safely!) a couple of miles away, on the other side of the river next to the dropzone. Friday was the main social night of tour – we went to the skydivers’ local haunt, which that night was overwhelmed by hordes of skydivers, and had a great time.

Once we’d all pulled ourselves out of crippling hangovers the next day, we go straight back to jumping (with a few members taking it a bit slower than others). José and Pippa were on the first jump of the day at 09:00 sharp and smashed through 8 jumps each. Iulian and Hassan completed their 10 consolidation jumps and achieved A-licence status, making them officially qualified skydivers!

Members got a couple more jumps in on the last day before having to leave in the afternoon for Lisbon. We slept over at the airport as we had a stupidly early flight in to London. Hassan took the opportunity for one last wander around when everyone else was asleep.

IC Skydiving were the only university society at the skydive event (otherwise known as a boogie) in the Algarve, and our attendance there secured international recognition in the skydive community, as well as creating a fantastic bond with the dropzone to ensure a continuous partnership for the future. We also earned a reputation for giving cured ham to the masses, thanks to Pippa buying a whole leg of ham and bringing it to the dropzone, feeding everyone around her. You have to look no further than the constant Facebook updates the dropzone were publishing to the wider world on our students and their progression, to see how much they liked us! We will be returning there every year with guaranteed discounts for our members!