Do you try to jump to hit the peak of a wave or the valley between two waves? You try not to hit your head on the door of the helo, land on your buddy or land on your boat---you can't really see the sea so well in the dark.
How do you determine how much equipment weight each person can carry? Grenada had multiple causes, not the least of which was over confidnece and a poor bump plan. They were rigged for a day jump and went out at night.
Do you jump with your gun or is it with the zodiac? Either--depends on the mission and the area. If the insertion is in a benign area, the rifles stay in the boat. You jump with your secondary and e&e kit. If you are inserting in a contested area, you go with first and second line, third line in the boat.
Is salt water a problem with your gun? No..I mean it would be if you didn't take care of it, but the sand is the big one, we have a vareity of methods--none perfect--to keep the guns on line.
Do you jump with explosives on you or are they in the zodiac? ZOdiac
When you reach shore do you keep your wetsuit and swim gear with you or leave it behind? Depends on the mission, but you try not to leave stuff behind--mostly because it is all custom and hard to replace. Generally you go over the beach, find a sfae spot, change pack the ruck and proceed. If you are gong back to the water you might do the whole mission in the wetsuit.
When swimming to land would you swim the majority on the surface until you neared the land or most/all of it underwater? Depends on the defences, radar swimmer detection etc. Both have advantages
When you do your five mile swim, do you use fins or not? Fins are always used except for the half mile bay swim and pool swims
They say the five mile swim is not timed. Is there an unoffical time you must finish by? You have to finish before you hyp out. We did our five milers at San Clemente--swim a little dive into the kelp beds chase fish, it was week 24--not a lot of pressure