Skydiving - Panama City, Florida

The bulk of my 48 jumps have taken place at a drop zone literally walking distance from my house on the shores of Stansbury Lake. In actually, it is better described as a glorified yard waste lagoon surrounded by Nouveau upper-middle class as evidenced by paper-plated cars parked in front of un-yarded homes. Although I am often insecure about my historical lack of prosperity when Utah is filled with single-income, property owners, the odor of borrowed riches reminiscent of pre-recession 2008 when the smart sung ,”When there is blood in the streets, BUY BUY BUY.” Even with the convenience of drop zone, I am becoming increasingly disinterested in skydiving because the culture at Skydive Utah is unfriendly, arrogant, and self-centered. My perceptions could be elaborated on, but why waste energy on those weirdos.

Arriving in Panama City, Florida I grabbed a rental car and raced the muggy back roads to Skydive Panama City…. Located about an hour from Panama City. Most drop zones located near vacations destinations are situated at the nearest small airfield which is a good drive from their name-stake. SPC operations are constructed from four joined trailers with a powerful air conditioner and a half dozen couches. The landing zone is covered with thick grass which poorly drains the afternoon showers common to inland Florida. After waiting three hours for rain clouds to pass, I jumped into a 210 and milled about waiting to follow people out to the plane. A random guy walked up, smiled, asked me what kind of jump I was planning on doing, and then offered to jump together. Then we were talking with a couple of other guys and next thing I knew, we were planning a tracking dive with 4 people. This would NEVER happen at Skydive Utah, pricks.

After gaining a little confidence, I changed into my speedo and paraded about the drop zone. There were a lot of grins, laughs, shy glances, and hungry scans. Waiting around on the tarmac, I attempted normal conversation with a couple of jumpers and a tandem student. The tandem was a gentleman in his 50’s which told me all about his jumps as a combat medic some 30 years ago. He grinned from ear to ear at what a jackass I am in that tiny, rainbow speedo. A mousey, female jumper seemed a little uncomfortable with my presence and could not pull her eyes off the speedo. After a few minutes I asked her to stop staring and the old man burst into laughter. Later I learned that the old man was her father.

The temperature at 14,000 AGL was in the high 70’s, much like a nice bath. Novice jumpers wear loose fitting jump suits because the wind resistance of flapping cloth slows decent and provides a large control surface. Remove that and I became a 180lb rock, tumbling out of control, at high speed. The opening hurt not only from increased fall rate, but the coarse material of the harness bit into damp, tender skin of the inner thigh. Flying a 230 canopy provided for a soft, stand up landing into a pool of rain water. Less lucky jumper were covered with angry ants driven to the surface by the rain.

Knowing the day couldn’t get any better, I pointed the peppy rental towards St. Andrew to the floating kitchen, Just The Cook. Even though it looks clean, the sticky, sour smell of a warm warf is far from appetizing. An attractive and seemingly intelligent barmaid took my order and offered me a free beer. Yes FREE beer from an objectively, normal female (I really need to leave Utah). The sleeveless, bearded cook boiled 1/2 lb of shrimp, tossed it in Cajun spices, and plated it with cilantro slaw, corn-on-the-cob, and fresh bread. What a perfect day….