Going Places!

The Seychelles Boogie is Paradise itself

Sometimes it’s not the jump itself, that is most important, but where you jump. Skydiving above and landing in places with unbelievable beauty could be much more satisfying than the jump itself.

Most dropzones are located in the countryside. The landscape below you can reach from green grass to brown desert. So this view gets boring quite fast. It might be better if your dropzone is located in the mountains or at the beach. But believe it or not, even this view gets boring after a certain number of jumps. And in most cases, we don’t even look at the landscape, not in freefall as we focus on the formation nor under canopy, as we just (should) check the proximity for other canopies.

I had an eyeopener a while ago during the boogie in the Seychelles. Despite the fact that I had many jumps there as a camera flyer and knew about the sheer beauty of these islands, I never experienced it in freefall. When a non-skydiving friend asked me, if I would do a tandem with her, I couldn’t imagine the impact this jump would have. With more than 800 tandems most procedures are automated. Stable exit, setting the drogue, doing the handle check. So far, so normal. 50 seconds of leisure time with nothing to do.

But then it hit me. Just looking around in freefall and absorbing the white puffy clouds above the green islands in the middle of the deep blue sea. The visuals were overwhelming. Like no other jump I did there before. Much more intense. Like standing on an observation platform and just enjoying the view. Even so checking altitude frequently is also an automated process, I cursed at my Protrack-II for reminding me, that it is time to open the canopy. I was completely flashed by the visual input.

While recently filming a formation above the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, several of the jumpers told me that they experienced the same feeling. Even with a world class organizer like Dan BC or Kate Cooper-Jensen and even the group was able to turn several points, one point like a star and then enjoying the view onto the mega-city and the last remaining ancient wonder of the world was the perfect skydive for them. So why not bring more visual beauty back into your skydives?

Fortunately there are events and places which focus on such visual jumps. Going to Dubai and jumping the Palm dropzone or going to Belize and jumping into the Blue Hole are memories for a lifetime. If you want even more, there are events like ‘inhops’ [jump-ins]. Going to a foreign country and jumping above several different places with unbelievable beauty.

The Color of Seychelles event from March 30^th to April 5^th 2023 has a perfect location to make those memories. The list of load organizers and camera flyers is exquisite.

• Karine Joly
• Greg Crozier
• Pete Allum
• Will Penny
• Omar Alhegelan
• Augusto Bartelle
• Andy Sbarato
• Jeremy Saint Jean 
• Even Rokne
• Ewan Cowie
• Ralph Wilhelm 

The visuals of jumping above and landing on three different islands gives you goosebumps on every jump, despite the pleasant 30°C water and air temperature.

If you want it a notch up, there is an inhop event right after that boogie, touring 11 different “dropzones” on six different islands of the Seychelles in the middle of the blue ocean, seven of these landing places untouched by skydivers. Some of these will challenge you; technically but also psychologically, knowing it is your only option and you cannot fail. Due to the vast ocean beneath, you will experience mind-fuck and adrenaline assessing jumps. But then, opening your perspectives, you will also see the plan B-options, you will get confident, and will be up for the tasks. The landing areas are selected with a natural progression, allowing you to customize yourself with the conditions and your accuracy skills.

The first “Colors of Seychelles” boogie in April 22 and the “Birds of Paradise” boogie in October 22, were organized by the same team and with most of the load organizers of the upcoming “Colors of Seychelles 2”. Both were highly successful and well organized. Same applies to the Inhop, where the organizers can look back on various events in different countries around the world like Slovenia, Namibia and two wonderful inhops in the Seychelles. 

The accommodation is luxury at first class hotels except for one night under the stars at a beach of dreams embraced by incredible shadings of turquoise, green and blue. Combined with the simply amazing color spectrum of the fishes, birds and plants of Seychelles, there is no better background for the visual impressions you are about to paint in your memories. Unforgettable!