Was it a dream? Nah can’t be! 

About a year ago I came across the Tsunami Skydivers Exotic Boogies FB Group run by Rich Grimm (an all-round legend!). The next big thing Rich was busy planning, was a super-extravagant boogie to be hosted at the luxurious Mercure Maldives resort on Kooddoo Atoll in February 2020. 

Rich and Tsunami Skydivers are well known for their Blue Hole (Belize) and Costa Rica boogies from years past. These boogies have been absolute highlights on the global boogie calendar for many years.

The idea was simple, host a boogie with a bunch (around 440) of international skydivers over 3x 8-day blocks (these were appropriately named Atollapalooza, The Pro-Tanning Tour and Mayhem in the Maldives respectively) at a luxury resort (with ‘all-in’ food and booze – yes, you read that correctly) on an atoll in the Maldives. So, despite now being based in Zurich, I put word of the event out to some of my “Saffer” skydiving mates and was joined on the adventure for the third week of the event by Craig Browne (D368) from Cape Town. (The third Week being more wingsuit-centric with some of the Squirrel and Next Level coaches also attending)

Photo credit: Jeff Donahue

From the skydiving perspective, nothing was left to chance. Rich being the supreme commander and chief with Mark Ehrmantraut in charge of the Safety crew, to Ronda Kaletz at manifest managing to not kill needy skydivers and doing her best to get everybody jumping and Markus Bastuck (the Aviation Master) with his Super Van all the way from Skydive Saar in Germany. Markus actually ferried his jump plane all the way to the Maldives and back. Also, a huge THANK YOU goes out to Ferzana and her staff at Mecure Maldives for making it such a memorable time and being so accommodating to us crazy lot.

There were a whole host of Load Organizers from all over the world, from Kate Cooper-Jensen taking care of the FS guys, Will Penny keeping the Freefliers cool, Regan Tetlow keeping everyone informed in FS, Johannes Bergfors taking it too steep, Lyal Waddell using the amazing ocean as a backdrop for some CRW/parabatics and got Craig to do a 2-way CRW Barrel with him and Randy Seib doing his best to keep the wingsuiters from landing off and having to swim back to the DZ! 

Tom Sanders and Brunno Brokken were the dedicated camera crew taking some of the most amazing photos and footage at the boogie. Check out the April 2020 Parachutist magazine, or Bruno’s YouTube video. Tom also uploaded his pictures here.

As with any DZ in a tropical climate, there were a few bad weather days that gave us a chance to not just skydive, but also drink too much (hence the article heading) and end up paying for new toys that got drowned/lost as a result…

The days (and nights) flew by and, shortly after we returned from the Maldives, the world went into lockdown – clearly a sign that we’d had waaay too much fun and karma was having it’s say! Everyone that was able to attend the boogie has, no doubt, thanked their lucky stars that the organizers were still been able to safely squeeze it in before the pandemic struck. For those that were not able to attend, the good news is that Rich informed us that he might (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) already be busy dreaming up the next crazy-awesome boogie. I’d thus recommend keeping an eye on the FB group mentioned above.

To close out, it’s incredible how these few weeks that have passed since that incredible holiday, feel like a lifetime and what makes a boogie such as this so great, is not only the venue, the skydives and the views, but the awesome people you get to meet and spend it with.

Oli Nöthen 

D906

PS: To my sponsors: Cypres, Squirrel, Cookie and Aerodyne for making events like this possible – THANK YOU!

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