2 jumps to get back in the swing of it

I jumped twice today, just to really get back in the swing of jumping, and to work on the stuff Casey talked about last week.

Jump 1:

Floating exit, stable quickly. Worked on snapping my 180 and 360 degree turns around more quickly. I used the runway as a reference point.

I planned to land in front of the hangar. At around 2000 feet, I realized there were about 6 other jumpers in the same spot, so I switched to landing behind the fuel truck. Stood up the landing exactly where I planned.

Jump 2:

Clouds were coming in. Grant went out with Meghan to do a check dive first. I waited for 5 seconds and dove out after them. I used them as a reference point to work on turns more. Before I pulled, I tried to track over to an area where there was a better view of the ground.

When I opened, the clouds surrounded me. The opening turned me and I was not sure what heading I was on until I got below the clouds and saw that I was over the neighborhoods on the far side of the railroad tracks. I flew in some brakes to try to keep altitude. It was pretty clear that I wasn't going to get back to the main landing zone, so I started checking for alternate places. My options were to land into the wind in a clear area on the far side of the tracks from the airport or to land downwind at the bottom of the hill just past the runway. I wasn't sure how I would get back to the airport from the first choice, so I decided on a downwind landing in about 12-13 kt winds. Lined up, brought the toggles down, and did an excellent PLF, in my opinion. I ended up with some little scratches on my right wrist and a bruise on my right ankle.

The guy with Tammy suggested that I could do a flat turn even pretty low to get into the wind. Grant suggested that I could pull the risers apart to flatten out the canopy while trying to get back to the landing zone. I need to try both of those things in the air next time.