spreadyourwingsandflyy

So on 12 October 2014, I finally went skydiving! 😀 FROM 14,000 FT!!! 😀 😀 😀

In a few months prior to my trip to Melbourne (you know, after all the booking confirmations and all), I found that Skydive the Beach and Beyond had 3 drop zones for Victoria – St. Kilda (they call it Melbourne), Great Ocean Road and Yarra Valley.

So in this post I’ll be talking about the Melbourne – St Kilda skydive – aka the one I went for 😉 Oh and by the way, you can bring your family or friends to witness your skydive! They’ll just hang out at the Moran Reserve (aka the drop zone), a 3-5min walk away from the check-in office 🙂

THE GENERAL INFO

So the company I signed up with was SKYDIVE THE BEACH AND BEYOND. Website: http://www.skydive.com.au/
They have skydive drop zones in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland.

For Victoria, the St. Kilda drop zone is the closest to Melbourne City Central and gives a view of both city and beach *and of course, the sea too* while Great Ocean Road gives you the view of the ocean 🙂 As for Yarra Valley, the mountains and valleys.

Prices differ by days (weekday/weekend) and there are very few slots so it’s better to book early (we’re talking about a handful here). There are packages where you can get photos *Silver package*, photos AND videos *Gold package* or photos, videos AND a top *Platinum package* 😉

Weather’s pretty unpredictable at times (wind and all) so I did email in to ask what if my skydive session had to be postponed but I was already going to fly out of Melbourne? Simple – all I needed to do was to provide a copy *evidence* of the details of my flight out back home *like you know, showing that I reallllly can’t make it anymore* and I can get my full refund back! 🙂 Which to me, of course, was very reassuring that this company is totally trust-able. ^_^

For your attire, don’t fret too much over it. Wear something comfortable (especially your top) and anything for your bottoms, since you’ll be given separate pants to wear over your bottoms. If you’re worried about the cold while in the sky, you can request to borrow a fleece jacket from them 🙂

GETTING THERE

You can find the directions to their check-in office on their website – by road (car) / train / tram.

(I took the tram so I’ll be covering on that. However, I took the tram and walked, unlike the recommendation of taking bus 246 to Elsternwick, as recommended on the STBM site.)

Method 1
On a usual basis, you can take 96 from Melbourne CBD to the very last stop – Barkly St/Acland St. After you get off, continue walking south along Barkly Street and make a right at Dickens Street until you hit Marine Parade or see the port with lots of boats and a long row of restaurants and shops behind it.

Method 2 (A longer walk than Method 1)

I took the tram there on a Sunday where there was a marathon going on so there were a few tram lines affected and the tram service only ended at St. Kilda Station (which was a quite a problem for me since I was running late actually). So if you’re stuck in this sort of situation, it’s best to ask around for directions to St. Kilda Beach *best landmark ever*. If you’re stuck at St. Kilda Station you’ll need to cross the road to catch another tram which I forgot which one that was… And get off once you see a theme park (Luna Park Melbourne) on your right (this stop is after The Esplanade).

If you’re coming by Method 1, after crossing this huge road (Marine Parade) you should see a low brick building on your right and on the left, a board with business listings such as St. Kilda Marina Pty Ltd, Riva, etc. Head straight in and make a right at where that low brick building is, and the check-in office should around there.

If you’re coming by Method 2, walk past Luna Park Melbourne, towards the beach and keep heading south (that’s errr left). Go straight down along Marine Parade (it’s easier if you cross early and walk along the pavement next to the St Kilda Beach) and keep walking till you see the boat port and “The Great Provider”, and head straight till the end of this fenced-up area, and before the junction you should see a low brick building on your right. Turn right in towards that low brick building *turn right again, it’s like a U-turn* and the check-in office should be right around there 🙂

If you have any other problems finding the check-in office you can just give the office a call and they’ll gladly help you 🙂 I didn’t notice that the office was another right turn in so they actually had their guys outside waiting for me to wave to me 🙂 Really friendly bunch!

(L) Low brick building behind the tree (Middle) Skydive the Beach Melbourne Check-In Office

CHECK-IN, PREPARATION

Everyone registered for the jump will need to fill up a declaration form (a few pages) and get fittings done. There are lockers available and you can have the key kept with the office staff. When in the office, you’ll notice that they have their STB tops and merchandise displayed which you can choose from.

Once everyone is done, a 5 minute video will be played outside the office (yes there are seats) and the staff will help with putting the appropriate gear on.

If there’s a previous time-slot for a jump, they will bring you right over to the Moran Reserve where you can watch others skydiving and parachuting down!!!

Skydive the Beach Melbourne Office & Moran Reserve (Drop-Zone)

PRE-JUMP

After awhile, participants will be brought over to a van which will bring them and their tandem instructors to the Moorabbin Airport – a 25 minute drive away. On the way, apart from being informed about who your tadem instructor will be, just sit back and enjoy the ride 🙂

At the Moorabbin Airport, the crew will start preparing more items, set up their Go-Pros and eventually lead everyone to the plane.

It’ll be squeezy in the plane *nice and cosy, I call it* and your tandem instructor would sit right behind you. Anyone who sits near the door (omg btw it’s transparent!!!) would get quite a ride up while looking out 😉 I was right next to it and man you should’ve seen my excitement xD The door doesn’t close till take off (like really, when the plane is TAKING OFF) so don’t panic if you’re sitting right in front of the door, can drop out anytime and yet the door is still open while it’s speeding up on the runway~

Enjoy the ride up and look outside – it’s gorgeous, trust me. Tandem instructors will do the fliming/photo-taking throughout (from Moorabbin Airport till post-jump). If you prefer to have more pictures taken you can request for that too 🙂

THE JUMP

The plane ride lasts for about 15 to 20 minutes – during which the tandem instructors will beginning tightening all gears and attaching whatever needs to be attached *PLEASE DON’T UNDO THIS OR MEDDLE WITH IT*, give you a short briefing, get you to put on your goggles and a give few reminders.

And when the door opens, the jump commences 😉

Oh do take note that if you get motion sickness easily, inform your tandem instructor about it. Mine loves spinning downwards which makes me totally dizzy so I had to close my eyes during those spinning moments xD And since I’m light *and smalllllll* he kinda had to force us downwards which gave me plenty of mini heart-attacks xD

But yes OMG TREASURE EVERY MOMENT. IT IS SOOOOO AWESOME OMG ❤ . Feel the cold air and take a good look around even while diving. And remember whatever you have learnt (which I’ll not cover here, but it’s about “the banana”, signals from your tandem instructor, etc).

Landing will require you to get your knees and feet up as high as possible (like a “L” shape) as it’ll require a bit of sliding on your bottom.

Your ears will probably be a bit… blocked? The pressure kinds of screws with your ears so hearing would be quite different for a bit. Girls, your long hair need not be tied up but you might get tangles after that *I DID* from the wind literally raping your hair xD

POST-JUMP

It’ll be great if you have a family member or friends around to take a few shots of you mid-air, landing, etc (actually it’s hard to tell who’s who unless you have like… neon hair or a neon top or or something. I had neon shoelaces but that didn’t really help xD). The camera will probably end up having pictures of everyone 😛 But yeah my dad was around so I got him to help me take photos – even one of my instructor and I! ^^

After settling down, everyone heads back to the office to get the gears and equipment returned, and you can collect your belongings at the same time.

If you have purchased a media package, it’ll take about an hour to be done so just go out for a walk and explore the area! The sea is beautiful so go and enjoy it 🙂

After your media is done up you can return back to the office, collect the CD, your top (for the Platinum package/separate-purchase) and a certificate! 😀

AND YOU’RE DONEEE!

{Map screen-grabs taken from Google Earth/Google Maps}
{Featured image taken by Grace T. flickr.com/grace57}